I’m pleased with the work that Everton have done during the transfer window and the strengthening of the squad that has taken place was very much needed. We haven’t got three or four options up front but I’m sure if a top quality striker became available and Frank Lampard got offered him then he would take him.
It’s difficult though to bring in that kind of quality if they know that as soon as Dominic Calvert-Lewin is fit again then they’re going to be playing second fiddle to him and sat on the bench. There’s not many top strikers about who would be prepared to come in under such circumstances.
Perhaps the quality of an Edinson Cavani, who has now gone to Valencia, or Diego Costa, who is training at Wolverhampton Wanderers, could have been huge but with Calvert-Lewin back training and hopefully not far off a return, it’s a very different picture now. We’ve got so many wingers in the squad who can put in crosses plus the full-backs, and they’re all desperate to have a striker in the box to target.
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Neal Maupay was a good option and probably a sensible one even more I’d have liked to have seen one more striker in but I understand Frank’s comments about how it would be a difficult situation to manage.
Hopefully we can started knitting together now. I thought it was shambolic that Maupay couldn’t play at Leeds because the Premier League wouldn’t register him even though he’d been an Everton player for four days.
If he’d been able to get some minutes under his belt at Elland Road then he’d have been sharper and more composed to take that chance against Liverpool but unfortunately for Frank, the rules did not allow it and he has just got to grit his teeth over frustrations like that.
It was a baptism of fire for Maupay, with his first game coming at Goodison Park when it’s rocking against Liverpool. He worked hard and provided a focal point to the attack and was making the kind of runs that we haven’t seen from our strikers so far this season.
Unfortunately his new team-mates hadn’t played alongside him before so they don’t know his strengths yet. Liverpool could hit the ball into certain areas and expect their team-mates to be there but when we got the ball out wide we weren’t crossing it in enough because we’ve not been used to having a target to aim for in the previous five games.
Maupay’s attitude was spot-on, he was asking questions of Liverpool’s defence and that’s something that we haven’t had so far. It was also great to see Idrissa Gueye come back, you could see his experience straightaway.
At the back we’ve got Yerry Mina, Ben Godfrey and Mason Holgate all to return and that’s great because it keeps the lads who are in there now on their toes. That’s the kind of headache that Frank wants because so far he’s had to use players out of their positions and mess about with a jigsaw that has missing pieces.
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