Everton manager Frank Lampard hailed Amadou Onana’s display on his first start for the club but admitted his side still need to improve in the final third of the pitch after they edged out Fleetwood Town 1-0 in the second round of the Carabao Cup.
Onana, who is Everton’s biggest signing of the summer after joining for £33.5million from Lille, made his full Blues bow at Highbury Stadium after substitute appearances against Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest and came in for some rough treatment from the League One opponents.
Lampard said: “I was pleased with how Amadou Onana faced the challenge and I thought he grew into the game. He showed his physicality and stood up to things, did some good passes, showed good aggression and good attitude plus a bit of quality driving through as the game went on which is a big quality of his.
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“With young players you have to be a bit patient and I want to work with him. As a midfield player I can see things from the sidelines that I can help him with and his team-mates can help him with but we need to get there pretty quickly because he’s a big player for the future.
“I was really pleased, I thought it was an impressive start and he’s a positive young man coming into the dressing room and that’s a nice feeling.”
While Everton did enough to win the tie, they still haven’t scored more than a single goal in any of their four fixtures so far this season and Lampard admitted his team need to become more potent. He said: “We need to improve there and the reality is, we need help in the squad there. We’ve got a good squad that we’re building, there’s a core, there’s a feeling of strength and solidity to it, especially in the Premier League games we’ve seen and I like that but it’s clear and obvious we need to be better in the final third.
“There’s the players that we have here now and if we can help to improve that with personnel, it’s absolutely an area we’re focussed on for sure.”
Asked if Everton would resolve the issue through working with the existing squad or recruitment, Lampard said: “Both. We need to work but work can’t recreate a game situation in the heat of the moment, it’s finding the final pass and it’s an issue in all of our games so far, the final pass, the final moment.
“Against Chelsea, we were running through one on one with Thiago Silva and couldn’t find the final pass and moments against Villa where we can find the pass and Demarai can be in or Forest where we don’t find the pass. We continue to work on it on the training pitch but the decision-making is up to the lads in that area of the pitch and it’s very difficult to recreate that and get in the areas to recreate those moments and it’s decisions and timing so it’s an area we’re trying to strengthen for those reasons of course.”
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