Frank Lampard has admitted that he was planning to use Neal Maupay in Everton's match against Leeds United on Tuesday night.
The Blues confirmed the signing of their new striker on Friday evening, as he signed a three-year contract following his arrival from Brighton. However, he wasn't named in the squad when the Blues made the trip to Elland Road days later thanks to a Premier League rule over his registration.
The organisation only allows signings to be registered if they are signed at 12pm on the last working day before a match, meaning that the bank holiday on Monday ruled out the 26-year-old for this clash. Lampard reiterated his confusion over the rule, and revealed that he had only found out on Monday morning that his new player couldn't take part.
The boss told his post-match press conference: "It is what it is with Neal. It is just interesting we signed him on the Friday afternoon and because of bank holiday weekend he isn’t able to play on Tuesday night. It seems like a long time.
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"So I wasn't aware of it until late, we prepared the game with Neal in mind and then that changed. We didn’t have that option of Neal to start or on the bench and we know we wanted an extra option.
"It's just the way it went.
"Yesterday morning [found out he couldn't play]. I'm not sitting and telling the Premier League what to do, because I'd probably get told off for saying that.
"But the reality is if you sign someone on a Friday...who gets bank holidays anymore?! I don't!
"The Premier League is the best league in the world, we've signed a player for four days. Whether it's a quirk in the rule that'll probably change now, maybe it'll change. I planned to play him, if I'm honest."
Everton continue to be linked with more forward options in the closing stages of the transfer window, with the deadline coming up on Friday. Lampard refused to rule out more activity from the club in that area of the pitch, but claimed that they are not desperate to bring somebody in.
He added: "We will see. We are not desperate. I think we've worked hard in a good manner in this window, it's not been an easy window because of the length of it.
"We know we need to adjust the squad, balance the squad, not rebuild the squad but importantly add in the right way. It has given us a difficult start in the sense that we are playing without a striker most games at the minute.
"It's probably held us back from a few points we've deserved. We'll see what we can do in the next few days."
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