Everton Need A Goal Threat From Wide To Avoid Another Relegation Battle

With the fourth-fewest goals in the Premier League so far in the 2022/23 season, Everton are in need of a solution in attack that is likely to involve dipping into the transfer market.

It doesn’t necessarily mean they need a new striker, either. A goal threat from wide areas would be more useful for them going into 2023.

Frank Lampard’s side have four games between now and the break for the World Cup, and they need to do their utmost to make sure they are not returning in 2023 having to fight a relegation battle.

Despite growing positivity around Everton at the start of the new season, the club remain just one point above the relegation zone and have won just two of their opening eleven games.

Defeat at Newcastle on Wednesday means they have now lost three in a row, and worries similar to those experienced towards the end of Rafa Benitez’s time in charge last season will begin to creep in again if they are not successful in the next four games.

The break for the World Cup will give them chance to regroup and provides plenty of time for them to assess where they need to strengthen in the January 2023 transfer window.

Suggesting they need reinforcements in wide areas is not to say they don’t already have good players in these positions. They just lack variety, and most importantly, goals.

Academy product Anthony Gordon was wanted by Chelsea in the summer, and the west London club were reportedly willing to offer up to $65 million for the 21-year-old’s services.

In the end, Everton decided to keep the player rather than take the money, but he has not quite produced as they might have hoped, with just two goals and no assists so far this season.

Elsewhere, Demarai Gray shows flashes of skill and good technique, but again, he is a tricky winger or an attacking midfielder rather than a wide forward who can get goals.

Dwight McNeil was signed from relegated Burnley in the summer and offers a high work rate off the ball but doesn’t offer anything more than Gordon and Gray can in possession.

Perhaps the best signing in the wide areas has been Scottish right-back Nathan Patterson who arrived in January 2022. It was a while before he was able to make an impact with the first team, but once he did, at the beginning of this season, he showed he is able to contribute at both ends of the pitch with his energy in defence and directness down the right side.

Vitalii Mykolenko, signed in the same transfer window as Patterson, has impressed at times but is not primarily an attacking full-back—rather one who can contribute during the build-up play and be solid in defence.

Everton have not looked as dangerous in attack since Patterson picked up an injury playing for Scotland against Ukraine at the end of September. Neither his now deputy, the experienced 34-year-old Seamus Coleman, nor Mykolenko on the other side, have been able to replace his verve.

Everton could use the more attack-minded left-back Ruben Vinagre who is at the club on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers, in an attempt to add some attacking threat down the left, but the best course of action for them towards the end of 2022 would be to find a wide forward in the transfer market who could offer a goal threat.

It’s something they lost when Brazilian forward and fan favourite Richarlison was sold to Tottenham in the summer. They replaced a number of the Brazilian’s attributes—such as work rate and pressing in defence—with Neal Maupay but they have yet to really find a goal threat.

The return from injury of Dominic Calvert-Lewin should help, but the centre-forward has only scored two goals for the club since Lampard’s arrival and has struggled to stay injury free.

Everton only had one shot in the entire game in that most recent fixture at Newcastle, and only three teams in the Premier League—Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, and Wolves—have scored fewer than the Toffees’ eight goals.

If Calvert-Lewin ends up being unable to score having been given an extended run in the side, it would suggest a problem with the system and the tactics employed by Lampard—Calvert-Lewin scored three in the five games he played under Benitez and thrived under Ancelotti when fit.

The issue of lack of goals from wide areas, though, is more one of personnel.

Richarlison himself was hardly prolific, so in many ways this is not a new problem for Everton.

This means there’s a good chance their recruitment team, under director of football Kevin Thelwell, should have been working on a solution for some time.

With an extended break before the next transfer window due to the unusual winter timing of the World Cup in Qatar, the next few months would be the ideal time to pursue a new signing or two out wide.

If Everton don’t solve this problem, they could end up in another relegation battle.

Though last season’s escape ended up being a joyous moment for the fans, scraping Premier League survival for two seasons in a row would not match their ambition, nor indeed those that should be held by the club as a whole.