Everton manager Frank Lampard has opened the door for more first team opportunities for the club’s youngsters after Tom Cannon capped a memorable 24 hours this week when he followed up his senior debut at Bournemouth with a two-goal blast for the Under-21s in their 2-1 comeback in over their Paris Saint-Germain counterparts in the Premier League International Cup.
Aintree-born Cannon bagged a brace at Walton Hall Park on Wednesday after coming off the bench at the Vitality Stadium the previous night to replace Neal Maupay and play the last nine minutes of the Blues’ 4-1 defeat in the Carabao Cup.
With Everton struggling for goals this season – they’ve netted just 11 in 14 Premier League games to date and Lampard has just revealed main striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin is now nursing three separate injuries – 19-year-old Cannon, who has been with the club since the age of 10, is offering a potential solution from within having been top scorer for the second string last season and hitting the net six times in Premier League 2 so far this term.
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Lampard, who took charge of Chelsea during a transfer embargo, was known for his enthusiastic blooding of youngsters while in charge at Stamford Bridge and hinted that there could be a similar policy from him at Goodison Park.
He said: “It’s there for them in terms of coming in to contribute. I was delighted to get him (Cannon) on the pitch and if they deserve it for how they’re playing for the Under-21s, him and various others then it’s great to have them on the bench, coming on, and getting that first taster.
“It’s not easy to integrate and expect everything in one go but at the same time to get those little bits of experience and the feeling in the group of players delighted to be involved, wanting to come in and show they’ve got the potential to play for this club is a nice feeling so it’s a good position and the young boys deserve it.”
Lampard also admitted that Everton are looking at adding additional firepower during the January transfer window.
Striker Maupay, signed from Brighton & Hove Albion in August, has netted once in 10 games so far while Salomon Rondon, brought to the club by Rafael Benitez in 2021 – who was not included in the squad for the Carabao Cup tie at Bournemouth – has also scored a single goal in 20 Premier League outings and three in 31 matches in all competitions.
He said: “We’re certainly considering it in the squad. I think the reality is that we lost Richarlison who was a big source of goals, we haven’t really had Dominic, who is a big source of goals, so I think some of it is par for the course a little bit in terms of their production for us, it isn’t there now.
“But when we looked at the window in the summer I knew we had to strengthen throughout the squad in different areas and the priority was certainly to stop conceding and be more solid and work through midfield and what does that look like.
!So it might be the next step, considering we haven’t had Dominic as well for a big portion so far this season, to give ourselves more options in an attacking sense to help the squad.
“Leicester was a prime example of a game that was tightly-contested, 50/50 in possession, they’ve got some really good players in terms of threat but we missed two really big chances in the game and they scored two amazing goals, one which was particularly amazing and another that was superb in the moment. So those things in both boxes can be really critical in terms of the fall-out, the talk and how you prepare for the next game and even the kind of questions I get today.
“All those things and confidence in the group can change with those things so more options can be a good thing because over the course of a season you sometimes you want to change things up and you want to have people to call on who you think can give you something different in an attacking area, we’re well aware of that.”
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