Jean-Clair Todibo: Fulham make £16m offer for Barcelona centre-back

Fulham have submitted an €18m (£16.3m) offer for Barcelona centre-back Jean-Clair Tobido as the club rush to reinforce their defence before the transfer window closes on 5 October.

Everton had initially led the race to sign Todibo and submitted a loan offer for the defender, who spent last season on loan at Schalke. However, Barcelona insisted that any deal had to be permanent in order to raise funds for their pursuit of Manchester City’s Eric Garcia.

The Toffees were reluctant to commit to signing Todibo outright, though, and instead turned to Norwich’s Ben Godfrey, with the highly rated England youth international now set to join Carlo Ancelotti’s side for an initial fee of around £25m.

Todibo has not yet come to any agreement with Fulham on personal terms, but the Cottagers are still hoping to persuade the 20-year-old over a move to south-west London before Monday’s deadline.

Scott Parker is desperately hoping to strengthen his squad after a miserable start to the Premier League season, with Sampdoria’s Omar Colley another centre-back of interest.

After Fulham suffered a dreadful 3-0 defeat against Aston Villa, co-owner and vice-chairman Tony Khan tweeted: “I apologize to @FulhamFC supporters for our performance tonight. We’ve looked to add centre-backs since Wembley, I’m sorry we haven’t yet as 2 got COVID + we lost a Free we thought was close + had another issue with a 4th CB. I promise players in + better efforts from this squad.”