Two young stars on Everton's radar this summer have shone in the opening weeks of the Champions League but Frank Lampard has no regrets - simply saying: "That is football."
Mohammed Kudus continued his strong start to the campaign for Ajax by scoring at Anfield in his club's narrow defeat to Liverpool this week. Everton were thought to have been close to a deal for the 22-year-old only for it to be scuppered when Manchester United moved in for his teammate, Antony.
Mykhaylo Mudryk then scored his second goal of this season's Champions League for Shakhtar Donetsk in their encounter with Celtic. The Ukrainian club's sporting director Darijo Srna stated Everton had submitted a £26m bid for the 21-year-old just weeks ago.
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For Lampard it could easily be a case of 'what might have been' had one - or both - of the players now emerging as some of Europe's brightest young talents had arrived at Goodison Park last month. He insisted he was happy with the business he did oversee, however, which included securing another prospect in Amadou Onana and retaining Everton's young starlet Anthony Gordon despite Chelsea's interest. Onana was one of eight signings in Lampard's first full window at the club.
Asked whether he felt any frustration at seeing Kudus and Mudryk enter the limelight following the closure of the transfer window, he said: "I'm very happy with the business we did in the window. And as I've said before if we couldn't do the right business, we wouldn't do it. Some players you can bring to the club and with others it may not be the right moment to bring them for whatever the reasons are so it's probably not worth me sitting here and commenting on [those] players and what they have managed to do in the last couple of weeks. That is football. All I can say is that I'm very pleased with what we have done and we will be judged more on how the team performs now in the next period whatever that is - six months, a year, 18 months - with the players we have brought in and then can we continue to improve as we go along. Players that didn't come here for whatever reason, well that's football isn't it?"
Lampard himself is pleased the transfer window has concluded and that he can focus on what is happening at Finch Farm and Goodison Park. He said Everton do have staff that have already moved straight onto identifying players who could become targets in the future and that is something he will be involved in, eventually.
For now, his attention is committed to the players he now knows will be his for the next few months. He said: "There are people whose job it is to get straight onto the next window - that is slightly mine as well - but in the last couple of weeks if I'm honest it has been nice to have a breather from the 'ins and outs' conversation and actually just analyse the squad now that we have made changes. The squad has to settle and you have to see where you are at and I think that is just an on-going conversation through to the next window and to the next after that. It's good that we feel that we are working in the right direction."
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