I don’t like looking at the negatives - but this has to be spoken about.
Even if Richarlison remained at the club, and Dominic Calvert-Lewin stayed fit, we still needed to bring another forward in this summer.
It showed last season that an injury here or there and we are short. To win football games you need strikers.
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We need to put the ball in the net and we need to create more opportunities. Dom has worked hard all summer, but unfortunately he’s hurt himself in training and he is out.
But we had an idea that Richarlison was going to leave the club a year ago. He made comments that suggested that he wanted to give the club one more year to try and get into the Champions League.
That obviously never happened. So the board knew, they knew that Richarlison was going to be off, but even if he stayed, we still needed another striker.
And to start the first game of the season without a striker, I feel sorry for Frank. There was an opportunity against Chelsea to take advantage of them not being 100%, but we have let that opportunity pass us by now.
The board may have cost Frank Lampard because we need strikers to come to the football club. We've long known that Richy was going to be leaving the club, and that also key players like Dom were not going to be playing all 38 games this season.
We needed competition alongside him and we haven’t managed to do that yet. Fingers crossed we do bring someone in, but it is really disappointing to see the board hasn’t appeared to back Frank to bring a striker in ahead of the first game of the season at Goodison Park.
It is the type of decision that could have made the difference. It is all hindsight I suppose, but top teams have options up top. We didn’t have one on the pitch on Saturday.
There is no doubt that it has cost us the chance of coming away from the game with a point, all possibly all three. I just hope now the board starts to get these deals over the line because we don't want moments or opportunities to pass us by.
It happened last year where things quickly bypassed us and all of a sudden we found ourselves fighting to stay in the Premier League.
We don’t want that and the only way to make sure that doesn't happen is to try and get points in every game we can, but Frank needs the personnel and he needs them now.
Leaving Goodison felt different on Satruday
Starting your season against Chelsea is never going to be easy as, after all, it wasn't that long ago they won the Champions League.
Normally, when we are beaten at Goodison Park you leave feeling disappointed and dejected, but on Saturday I didn’t feel like that at all.
I actually left Goodison impressed by what I had witnessed by Everton. I thought we actually produced a solid performance and, on another day, could have easily picked up a point. Ultimately, a soft penalty was the difference between the two sides.
The real positive for me was how we defended set-pieces. Chelsea alone had 16 corners, and we dealt with them in an effective manner.
This time last year we would have all been expecting the worst to happen, but you could see on Saturday just how Frank and his coaching staff have been drilling the lads during pre-season.
But I think a big help in terms of defending set-pieces is the arrival of James Tarkowski, who has taken total control at the back and has no hesitation in telling people what they should be doing and where they should be.
However, there is no doubt who Everton’s Man of the Match was at the weekend, and that was Alex Iwobi. A year ago I never thought I would find myself singing the praises of Iwobi, but he was superb on Saturday and something has just clearly clicked with him.
He’s gone from being one of the players who fans would have wanted to leave the club, to becoming one of the first names on the teamsheet for the Blues.
However, on the flip side, unfortunately for Demarai Gray, Saturday's match just simply passed him by. He’s done well since he joined the club last summer, but something just did not click at the weekend.
I can’t work out whether the game came too soon for him, or maybe the position he was asked to play was a bit too unfamiliar, he just didn’t seem to be at it. He also lacked conviction with his passing at key moments in the game.
We did have our moments and the pleasing thing was that you can see what Frank wants to do moving forward and there are - which there haven’t been for a long time when it comes to Everton - at least signs of progress being made.
R.I.P Izzy
Amid all the talking points from Saturday’s game, I thought it was a real touching moment when Goodison, as one, rose to its feet to show its love for Izzy O'Connor and her family.
For those that don’t know, Izzy sadly passed away last month after being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia 15 months ago. She was a true blue and Saturday's applause was a real fitting tribute to her.
My thoughts and prayers are with Izzy’s family and friends at what must be an incredibly sad time for them.
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