Journalist Joe Thomas has claimed there were some concerns in Australia over the weakened squad Everton took with them.
Frank Lampard, like many other managers across the Premier League, has had to deal with his unusual mid-season break and a sort of miniature pre-season, but without some of their star players as they represent their countries at the World Cup.
Therefore, Lampard was unable to take players such as Jordan Pickford, Idrissa Gueye, Conor Cody or Amadou Onana with him to Australia which saw them boast a rather weakened side before even contemplating injuries to people such as Dominic Calvert-Lewin and James Garner.
This led to some concern within the Everton circle, according to Thomas who spoke about it on the Royal Blue podcast.
(8:35) “I think going into the Celtic game [in Australia] I think there was a degree of concern really because we’ve all have seen it that week, the squad Everton took to Australia wasn’t the strongest squad.
Do you still have faith in Lampard?
Yes!
No!
“They couldn’t do a lot about that, obviously, you had Onana, Coady, Pickford and Gueye are all out on World Cup duty so that’s four of the starting 11 had gone. Iwobi, Coleman and Rondon as well were out on international duty.”
TIF Thoughts on Everton’s squad…
This Everton squad is rather unbalanced as they have bloated areas such as the centre of midfield, but then other positions such as striker and full back afford Lampard very few options, so it only takes a few absentees and injuries to have thems scraping the barrel.
It’s interesting that Alex Iwobi and Seamus Coleman decided to jet off on international duty that wasn’t at the World Cup as it affects Lampard by limiting the work he can do with his first-team players.
Given how many young players were called upon out in Australia, it will have likely sent a message to the Everton board about how desperate Lampard is for new recruits in the January transfer window to ensure they don’t get sucked into the bottom three come May.