During the summer you are always picking up your phone and reading every gossip column you can.
Everton have been linked with a lot of players, all different types and in a variety of different positions so far this summer. But I’m not going to lie, the Conor Coady links initially shocked me - especially as we all know he is a Liverpoool fan!
But it looks like he's forced the move through himself and he was pleased to come Everton Football Club. And that is what I said in my first column of the season, we needed to make changes around our recruitment strategy.
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In my opinion, we needed to bring players to the club who wanted to be here. Players who will be proud to put an Everton shirt on and put a performance in.
In the past we have seemed to go for players who felt like they were doing us a favour by coming to Goodison Park. Players who had the wrong mentality and attitude.
But in Conor Coady we have a local lad, who will no doubt have friends who are blues, who wants to play football with his eyes on getting a place in England’s World Cup squad.
He speaks well when he is on the telly, he’s a leader, and most importantly he is desperate to play as much as he can and put the types of performances in that are needed to catch Gareth Southgate’s attention.
And even though it is a transfer that has come out of the blue, it is one that I am all for.
Onana and Gueye bring perfect transfer balance
While the signings of Amadou Onana and Idrissa Gueye are bodies that we desperately need.
Frank has never really been able to find a solution in midfield and it has been clear for a while now that it was an area he was desperate to strengthen this summer.
But we now need to look at getting some bodies from midfield out of the club. Hopefully the ones who aren’t in Frank’s plans look to leave in order to play football and don’t want to sit around doing nothing.
While Gueye is someone we know a lot about, Onana is one for the future. The balance between the two, with one being brought in for the short-term, while the other is clearly one for the long-term, is just what we needed.
You never know with transfers how they are going to work out, but if you remember the signing of Gareth Barry, there was very little fanfare around his arrival, but in the end, he ended up going on to be one of our most important players for a couple of years.
But one thing you guarantee is that both of them will be desperate to get in and show everyone what they can do. The arrival of the pair will also give everyone at the club a much needed lift and ensure Frank has options moving forward.
Why Blues owe Villa
This weekend sees the Blues head to Villa Park and I think we can all agree that we owe Steven Gerrard’s side one. Not only did they beat us at Villa Park quite comfortably last season, but the defeat at Goodison was deeply disappointing.
Hopefully a few new additions will be lining up for the Blues at the weekend, but there will still be players starting who featured against Villa last season.
It would also be nice to see the Blues pick up even a point on their travels. Last season’s away form has been well documented and history can simply not repeat itself this time round.
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