Everton FC's Samuel Eto'o arrive's at Goodison Park.
Four or five years ago who would have thought Everton FC would be signing Samuel Eto’o?
Back then, if you had said to someone the Cameroon forward was headed to Goodison Park, people would’ve thought you were absolutely bonkers.
But this week the Blues landed one of the most highly decorated strikers of recent years.
Eto’o is a great signing for Everton and I am convinced he has a point to prove in the Premier League.
But not only that; Everton have so much young talent in their squad that somone with his CV and experience will be invaluable to those players.
Some of the youngsters in the Blues ranks are destined to be massive stars and they can learn so much from Eto’o.
The sceptics will say that the 33-year-old is past his best.
Maybe he is, but I am sure that he will be a great addition to the squad and having watched him a few times last season at Chelsea he still looks dangerous, gets into all the right positions and finished his time there with a decent scoring record.
It is natural to be cautious when it comes to big name players such as this and I’m sure a number of Evertonians are wondering if he will be another David Ginola or Gazza.
No disrespect to those lads but we didn’t see the best of them at Everton and they struggled to make a real impact.
But I don’t see Eto’o suffering the same fate.
He hasn’t come to the club for money and is certain to have had more lucrative offers from elsewhere in Europe.
I don’t believe he has come for one last payday – it’s not like he’ll have problems paying the electricity bill!
I believe he has joined Everton for a number of reasons, but the main one being that he wants to prove a point in England.
Eto’o also seems to understand how the club works and clearly likes the way the Blues play under Roberto Martinez.
I also believe that Eto’o’s arrival is great news for Romelu Lukaku.
Everton’s record signing will have been buzzing this week as the news filtered through.
Lukaku is a lad with a great attitude who wants to work hard and learn.
And who better to learn from than Samuel Eto’o?
He will show Rom how to conduct himself.
In so many ways this is an ingenious signing from Everton. Samuel Eto’o eh?
Who would’ve thought it?!
Blues have to get back to last season’s defending
The big difference between our performances this season and last is the defending.
We are not doing the things we did so effectively last season, and as we saw yesterday in that incredible game at Goodison it is costing us points.
We are not tracking markers, we are not getting tight in the box and we are standing off players. We also made some uncharacteristic individual errors yesterday.
Everton's Tim Howard kneels dejected after conceding a sixth goal during the Barclays Premier League match at Goodison Park
For a player of Jags’ experience it was a crazy decision to try and step up with the game just 30 seconds old and that put us on the back foot right from the start.
Muhamed Besic is a young lad with a lot of promise so I hope that his first touch which put Diego Costa through for the last goal doesn’t affect his confidence.
Because there are some positives we can take from a shaky start to the season.
For 80 per cent of the game against Arsenal we were excellent.
I thought the way we responded at times yesterday was impressive too.
And I was delighted to see Samuel Eto’o get off the mark on his debut because it’s important for goalscorers to break their duck as quickly as possible.
But most importantly we need to improve our defending as a team.
The international break might have come at a good time to address some of those issues. It will also be a good opportunity for some of the newer players to settle down, get to know the club, the system and Roberto Martinez’s way of playing.
That performance yesterday did not remind me of the Everton we saw for much of last season and we know it can – and must – improve before we play again.
A relaxed deadline day at Goodison
Transfer deadline day is tomorrow.
A number of clubs will be frantically racing round trying to tie up last minute deals.
But I would suggest everything will be fairly relaxed at Goodison.
The Blues have done some terrific business in this window and they have a really strong looking squad.
The team-sheet for the Arsenal game was really impressive and with lads such as Ross Barkley, John Stones and Seamus Coleman signing new deals it’s been a good window.
Source: Echo
