Everton play their third game of the new 2022/23 Premier League season tomorrow as they host newly-promoted Nottingham Forest, looking to register the first points of the campaign. The Blues have mostly kept things tight in their first two clashes, losing by the odd goal in both, but concerns around injuries and lack of transfer activity especially in the forward areas continue to blight any optimism built up over the summer.

Speaking during his pre-match press conference this afternoon, manager Frank Lampard addressed the transfer rumours swirling around first Anthony Gordon with Chelsea reportedly having made a couple of large bids for the youngster.

“Anthony Gordon is an Everton player isn’t he? We can talk about likely or hypothetical questions or what may be, but he’s an Everton player.

“Firstly he has got a huge value to the team for me. We saw that in his progress last season when I got here, and felt that on the pitch. He’s a massive player in the squad and a huge valuable asset for the club, one that we’ve developed ourselves and has come through.

“There’s a link to the fans, a link to the club, that’s the story of Anthony Gordon. He’s in the squad for tomorrow, any chats I have with him will remain private. You can’t ask me to assure anything, it’ll be naive of me to assure anything. I can’t assure I’ll be here by the end of the window!”

Dele Alli has also been a topic of outgoing transfer activity with Besiktas interested in the player and the former Spurs footballer expected in Turkey today to complete the formalities of the transfer, said to be a loan with an option to buy at the end of the season.

“There’s interest in Dele, I think that’s come out publicly in the last couple of days. It’s one for us to consider ourselves behind the scenes, and one for Dele to consider for himself. For him to go it will have to be the right situation for everybody.

“It’s a long conversation that I don’t want to get too drawn on because the name Dele’s name comes up in the media, people queue up to have an opinion, it’s been quite negative, and not fair for a young man who has been one of the world’s best as young player.

“I think we should just respect the fact that he needs to keep working & it’s his career.”

Lampard also addressed Everton’s lack of transfer activity in the last couple of weeks with regards to forwards.

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