Even Bony would have been better for Everton than no striker

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Everton have failed to sign a new striker to replace Romelu Lukaku – should they have tried to beat Swansea to Wilfried Bony?

Manchester United striker Romelu Lukaku celebrates scoring during the English Premier League football match against Swansea City.

After months of speculation about who would replace Romelu Lukaku at Everton following his switch to Manchester United, transfer deadline day came and went without a new striker coming through the doors at Goodison Park.

As the Liverpool Echo outlines, names such as Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud, Christian Benteke of Crystal Palace and more recently Watford captain Troy Deeney have all been linked with the Toffees, but all of those potential deals failed to materialise.

Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud (C) celebrates scoring Arsenal’s fourth goal during the English Premier League football match against Leicester City.

In the end the only new arrival on the final day was attacking midfielder Nikola Vlasic from Hajduk Split, adding to what has admittedly been a very busy summer of business for the club with the signings of Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Davy Klaassen, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Wayne Rooney, to name a few.

The problem is one of the big issues in Ronald Koeman’s squad hasn’t been addressed – where will the goals come from?

Everton manager Ronald Koeman gestures during the English Premier League football match against Manchester City.

Their three Premier League matches so far have yielded just the two, both scored by Rooney, and while two of those games have been against title hopefuls Manchester City and Chelsea, against the latter the combination of Rooney and Sandro Ramirez upfront looked sluggish and uninspired.

Options had become limited for Koeman in terms of a new forward, but someone with top flight experience in England to at least operate in a similar style to Lukaku would have been better than no one. Wilfried Bony, for example?

Bony completed his return to Swansea City on deadline day and while the chance of going back to the club where he scored 35 times in 70 outings was understandably tempting, surely playing in the Europa League and battling for a top six finish would have been even more so?

The Ivory Coast international has hardly been in great form since a 2015 switch to City from the Swans, but just having that extra option in attack would have been useful – at least as a short-term solution. As it is the Merseysiders have an abundance of creative talent in midfield and an aging Rooney and developing Sandro to finish it off.