Barry Cass has been speaking on the Toffee TV YouTube channel about how impressed he’s been with Demarai Gray this season.
It has been a red hot start to the season for new signing Gray who was the only player that Everton actually paid a transfer fee for over the summer, despite bringing in five new recruits and the £1.8 million spent appears to be a shrewd piece of business with three goals in four league games.
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On Monday evening, Gray once again proved his worth and repaid Rafa Benitez’s faith in him by bringing him to the club with a crucial goal against Burnley which made it 3-1 and secured the win and continued their unbeaten start under Benitez.
Cass praised Gray’s performance and start to the season.
(0:32) “The first thing I’m going to speak about is Demarai Gray I just thought [he was] absolutely fantastic tonight. He’s changed the way Everton play quite frankly, this is one of the reasons why we’ve been crying out for a player with pace you know, we’ve been banging on about it on this channel for some time.
“Bringing in a quick wide player, Everton tried to get a couple in this summer which really would have changed the dynamic of the whole team but Demarai Gray himself has really done that, him and Andros Townsend who’s not lightning quick but he gets there, but Demarai Gray is very quick, very bright and very direct.
(1:51) “It looks like he’s really enjoying his game as well and that’s massive and the fans appreciated everything he did tonight and he went off just before the end to a standing ovation and rightly so as well. I thought he was brilliant but you know to get him for £1.6 million, fantastic piece of business.”
TIF Thoughts on Gray…
Gray may have thought his time playing for one of the clubs fighting at the right end of the Premier League table was over when he was shipped off to the Bundesliga in January this year having featured just once for Leicester City in the first half of the campaign but Benitez saw something in the winger and snapped him up for £1.8 million.
At such a small transfer fee it’s a relatively low-risk move for the Toffees but one which appears to have huge upside if Gray keeps up this form, which was not evident during his time with Bayer Leverkusen scoring just the once and managing to start only five league games.
It looks like Gray could be the adventurous winger with an end product that the Toffees have been crying out for as after just four games he has accumulated the most progressive distance with the ball having racked up 526 yards, with Abdoulaye Doucoure miles behind in second with 402 (FBRef), so it seems like Gray is a player that will continue to attack defences and get fans excited.