Conor Coady has explained the improvements Everton have been aiming for under Frank Lampard this season.
The defender made his second start for the club, and his first at Goodison Park, in the 1-1 draw against Nottingham Forest on Saturday afternoon. Brennan Johnson's second-half opener for the visitors was cancelled out late on by Demarai Gray as the Blues secured their first point of the Premier League season.
Everton might still be waiting for their first win, but the defender believes that their performances so far this term have shown the tactical improvements that the manager is attempting to instil. The centre-back insisted that there might need to be patience at some intervals in games, and he's looking forward to being able to kick on after a big week.
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Coady remarked: "To be honest with you, I thought we played really well. We spoke about wanting to make it high tempo for the first 15 minutes, get in Forest's faces, trying to run, get in behind. I thought we done that, I thought we done exactly what the gaffer wanted us to do.
"There is going to be times in the game when you’re going to have to be patient, control the game without the ball, that’s the place we need to get to. We need everybody on board with that, we need to do it as a team and get to that point.
"We done that, midway through the first half when Forest had more of the ball. We were comfortable, we were in shape and we didn’t give many chances away.
"Anyone watching the game would look at it and think we had a lot of chances, shots and different things. We could have scored more. It’s a point, it’s a point on the board and we want to look back on this week as a big one to try to kick on now."
Everton have played the opening matches of the campaign without their main striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who continues to recover from injury. Salomon Rondon is the only out-and-out option available to Lampard in that position as things stand, although the Venezuela international looks to be lacking in match fitness.
However, Coady doesn't believe too much focus should be placed on the striker situation. The Blues are looking to improve themselves all over the pitch, regardless of who leads the line.
"With a striker or whatever it is, it’s always crucial to pick up points in the Premier League. We don’t want to fall behind too much," he added.
"At the same time, as I mentioned, we are improving as a team, there are a few new players in the squad, we are trying to learn a little bit of a different way. We are trying to have the ball a little bit more, trying to be aggressive on the front foot but we are playing in the Premier League against teams who deserve to be in the Premier League.
"There are going to be times the opposition have the ball and are trying to play at 100mph for every minute of the game, we have to try to have control and be positive in what we are doing to try to win the ball back and force them into areas. You can see us doing that.
"If anybody is watching the game you can see what we are trying to do and how we are going about it. We are improving. It is important we keep on picking up the points. It’s up to us to listen to the manager every day to get better.
"We are looking on improving, we are looking to get better. We all know what Everton stands for, we know it as a team, we know it as players, we know what it means to the fans and we know what it means to them to be winning games.
"We are also looking at the bigger picture of the team, people are watching the game and how we are playing and we are improving game by game. It’s important we keep on doing that.
"The Premier League is so, so tough but we are taking on his ideas every single day to improve. It is about improvement every day."
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