Everton have moved closer to reaching an agreement with Villarreal over signing France Under-21s striker Thierno Barry.
The 22-year-old has a £34.5m release clause with the Spanish club and is understood to be keen on a move to Merseyside.
Barry scored 11 goals and provided four assists in 38 games last season as Villarreal finished fifth in La Liga to qualify for the Champions League.
He would join as a replacement for striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin who left Everton upon the expiry of his contract this week.
Forward Armando Broja also exited when his loan ended, returning to Chelsea without the deal being made permanent.
Barry was born in Lyon and left French club Sochaux aged 19 to play in the Belgian second division with Beveren.
The following season he moved to Swiss Super League club Basel, before joining Villarreal in August 2024 in a deal worth about £13m.
Matthew Hobbs, BBC Sport:
A Premier League move at the age of 22 would continue Barry's rapid rise in European football.
Only three years ago, he completed his first season of senior football in France's fifth tier before moving to Belgian second-tier side Beveren in July 2022.
Twenty goals in 28 starts were enough to earn a move to Swiss Super League side Basel a year later and he subsequently finished as the club's top scorer on 12 goals in his first campaign of top-flight football.
A flurry of eight goals in the first four matches of 2024-25 convinced Villarreal to sign the 6ft 5in striker and he was an instant success, helping the Yellow Submarine finish fifth with their highest points tally in 17 years.
Barry was in an elite group of players aged under 23 to score 10 or more goals in Europe's top five leagues this season, sitting alongside the likes of RB Leipzig's in-demand Benjamin Sesko, Paris St-Germain's Bradley Barcola and Eintracht Frankfurt's Hugo Ekitike.
Barry's height makes him a huge threat in the air and he ranked second of all forwards in Europe's major leagues for aerial duel success in 2024-25, winning 66.7% of his 153 challenges (minimum 100 aerial duels).
It is a facet of Barry's game that has undoubtedly attracted Everton boss David Moyes, whose sides typically get lots of crosses into the box.
The Toffees ranked seventh for open-play crosses in last season's Premier League, although they struggled to convert crosses into goals, scoring just three times from such situations – the fewest of any club other than Chelsea (2).
