Everton director of football Marcel Brands has revealed how close the club came to missing out on Yerry Mina.

The defender eventually sealed a £28.5m move from Barcelona, with Andre Gomes also joining on loan from the Catalan giants. The deal looked as though was going to fall through at the eleventh hour. And Brands has admitted the club's stubbornness on Mina's fee almost caused the move to collapse.

Asked why the deals took a while to complete, Brands said: "That was mainly because of Mina of course, because there were a lot of rumours also about other clubs in the Premier League - so Barcelona waited.

"We didn't change the offer, so that was a little bit of a gamble, but it worked in the end.

"The boy was clear, he wanted to play for Everton, so that helps a lot, of course.

"From the other side, the new market was closing earlier and the other countries waited until the end, because they know what Premier League clubs can do - so that did not help me.

"In the end it went the right direction, but I was a little bit unsure what would happen in the last days."