Frank Lampard has Everton agreement in clear January…

Frank Lampard has Everton agreement in clear January transfer plan

Everton could look to more than one attacking signing in January as the club attempts to address its lack of potency.

Goals have been hard to come by for Frank Lampard's side, with just 11 scored in 14 Premier League games. Only two of those have been provided by recognised strikers and the club has struggled amid the continuation of Dominic Calvert-Lewin's injury issues.

With the January transfer window just three league games away, attention behind the scenes has long been on identifying potential options to boost the attack. And while Everton remained constrained by financial factors, Lampard is confident there is an agreement at the top of the club about the need for reinforcements.

FULL RECAP: Everything Frank Lampard said in his Everton press conference

Lampard said he was unclear what his budget would be in the new year but stressed: "I know we’ve got the support and a joined-up understanding that we want to help the squad in January." While the club was hopeful Calvert-Lewin would maintain his pre-season fitness and be a consistent source of goals this season, there was recognition from within that there was a lack of back-up heading into the new campaign.

Boosted by Calvert-Lewin's impressive fitness before his devastating injury on the eve of the first game of the season, Lampard and those around him made making the squad more defensively solid their priority. That approach has been largely successful but Calvert-Lewin's absence and the struggle for goals from elsewhere has undermined the defensive gains. The search to identify attacking improvements saw late summer interest in the likes of Mohammed Kudus, Mykhailo Mudryk and Morgan Gibbs-White and did not end when the window closed.

Improving the Blues' goal threat has become a necessity after the start to the season and Lampard pointed to how the club was approaching this job as he spoke ahead of the final tie before the World Cup break, at Bournemouth. He said: "We’ll be looking at how we can help the squad in different ways, maybe with different profiles to what we’ve got and one or two areas at the top end of the pitch, for sure, is where we are looking... I think a reality is we lost Richarlison, who was a big source of goals, we haven't really had Dominic, who is a big source of goals, so I think some of it is par for the course. Their production for us isn't there now but when we looked at the [summer] window I knew we had to strengthen throughout the squad in different areas and the priority was to stop conceding and be more solid through midfield."

Lampard is hopeful part of the solution lies within the squad - and that Calvert-Lewin can use the next six weeks to overcome knee, hamstring and shoulder issues and return to full fitness ready for the resumption of the Premier League on Boxing Day. But reducing the pressure on Calvert-Lewin is a consideration, as the ECHO has previously reported. He said: "It may be the next step, considering we haven't had Dominic as well for a big portion of this season so far, to give ourselves more options in an attacking sense to help the squad. Leicester is a prime example: it was tightly-contested, 50-50 possession, they have got some really good player and a threat and we missed two really big chances and they scored two amazing goals.

"Those things in both boxes can be really critical. Confidence in the group can change with those things so more options for us can be a good thing because over the course of a season you want to change things up and you want to have people to call on who can give you something different in attacking areas. We are well aware of that."

READ NEXT:

Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.

Already a member? Sign in here