Everton still need more pace
Everton have still not announced the much-anticipated signings of new midfield recruits. And while all three will be very welcome additions when they finally arrive, can the club next find a way to bring more pace into the team?
As mentioned earlier, all this planned recruitment represents a real challenge to the existing midfielders at Everton.
As a follow-up, after sorting out these midfield signings, (assuming they ever do!), Everton need to look at how to improve the pace and attacking options, particularly out wide.
Pace is so critical to modern football, especially in the Premier League and the Toffees still look a little lacking in enough pace to me.
None of the current options such as Theo Walcott, Yanick Bolasie and Bernard are satisfactory and of course may be leaving the club if acceptable, or perhaps if any bids come in for them!
The Blues are adding two central midfielders in Allan and Abdoulaye Doucoure, who is quick, and another player in James Rodriduez who can operate out wide. Rodriguez, does though lack pace and is really much more suited to drifting inside or playing as a number ten.
None of these players, good though they are, will add a lot more pace or much greater width. So, if it’s not too greedy of me, I think the Toffees next need to try and kill two birds with one stone by signing a full-back/wing-back type on the right, who also offers real pace and attacking flair.
That’s not easy in the current market, as the Blues are essentially trying to find a right-sided version of Lucas Digne.
In previous articles we’ve looked at possible new right-back/wing-back options such as Barcelona’s Emerson, which is of course the club Everton got Digne from, or possibly Santiago Arias, although he doesn’t offer as much attacking threat.
Now though it appears that Arias has been diagnosed with Covid so it looks like he might not be a feasible candidate anyway, at least not for a while!
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Another option is to bring in an outright wide attacking player who can operate on either flank so giving the team additional pace and goal threat and there are a number of possible options.
One player that Everton are being linked with quite a bit at the moment is want-away Atletico Madrid winger Thomas Lemar.
The Frenchman has struggled to establish himself in the Atletico team after a blockbuster transfer from Monaco back in 2018.
The Liverpool Echo report the Spanish media are again saying that Lemar wants a move to the English Premier League this summer.
However, the Spanish club are being quoted as wanting around £25 million for the player, which is around three times less what they paid to sign him. It’s not just Everton who make bad financial decisions on players! This must be a little bit of a warning as to whether he can perform in the better leagues. In addition, Lemar tends to play on the left and Everton need a right-sided player.
Furthermore, it seems highly unlikely that the Toffees will be shelling out that sort of money again in this transfer window, at least not without selling two or three of the existing players they want off the books, for substantial fees.