Stan Collymore believes that Merseyside club Everton should have tried to sign veteran forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic while the big Swede was still available on a free transfer.
During the summer, Everton lost their main-man and top-scorer Romelu Lukaku to Manchester United for a fee of around £75 million and they have worryingly failed to replace the big Belgian with adequate quality.
Such as failure has proven to be costly for the Toffees so far and this can be testified by the Merseyside club’s failings in front of goal during the current campaign.
Following the exit of the Belgian international, Everton signed the likes of Wayne Rooney, Sandro Ramirez and Nikola Vlasic to get the goals for the club. However, none of them have managed to impress in front of goal and the trio only have a combined two goals to show for their efforts so far this season.
None of the aforementioned players look like genuine forwards and as a result, player turned pundit Stan Collymore has suggested that the Toffees should have considered signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a proven goal scorer, while the Swede was still available for free this summer before he joined Manchester United.
He wrote in his column for the Mirror, “I can understand Everton wanting to flesh out their squad with the Lukaku money in the summer – but unless you’ve got goals in the side you’re not going to break into the top four,”
“Arsenal have Alexis Sanchez, Liverpool have Sadio Mane and Mo Salah, while United will have four options up front when Zlatan Ibrahimovic is back, and Manchester City four or five.
“So not until Everton have a Lukaku and a Marcus Rashford-type figure coming through to get 40 or 50 goals between them will they make the leap from Europa League to Champions League.
“I was surprised they didn’t push hard for Fernando Llorente, who has a great pedigree, or David Villa, who is scoring goals for fun in New York and has just been brought back into the Spain squad
“Could they have given Ibrahimovic’s agent a cheeky call and offered him a three-year deal?
“Any of them would have made a difference and had even one of them signed then Koeman might have been a little bit more inclined to agree with [Jose] Mourinho’s assertion, or Mourinho less inclined to make it in the first place.”
Collymore’s concerns look valid especially considering how timid the Everton attack looked in their recent defeat to Manchester United. Neither Rooney nor Sandro Ramirez looked capable of stretching the Manchester United defense and this will definitely be a cause for concern for manager Ronald Koeman.
While it seems noble to allow the development of the likes of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Koeman will quickly need to find the solutions to their attack if they are to challenge for the Champions League places this season.
