Michael Ball says Everton should have signed Olivier Giroud

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Michael Ball says Everton should have acted quickly to sign the Arsenal striker.

Former Everton footballer Michael Ball says that the Toffees should have acted quickly to sign Olivier Giroud from Arsenal.

This has been a busy summer transfer window, with Ronald Koeman signing several top class players.

However, Ball feels that the failure to sign a striker before the deadline day was “disappointing”, and adds that letting Giroud go off their grasp could cost them badly.

Giroud was facing an uncertain future at Arsenal, especially after the arrival of Alexandre Lacazette from Lyon.

Everton, who were looking to sign a centre-forward having sold Romelu Lukaku to Manchester United, were linked with a move for Giroud.

In the end, Giroud decided to stay put and fight for his place at Arsenal.

Ball says that had Everton put in a bid while he was enjoying his holiday, the French striker would have made a move to Goodison Park.

He says that in hindsight Everton should not have let Lukaku go until they had signed a replacement.

However, Everton didn’t step up with concrete effort as they did for Gylfi Sigurdsson, and eventually, missed out on the player.

“With the transfer window now having slammed shut it was disappointing that we didn’t get the striker that Ronald Koeman said we needed and if, as we’ve been told, Everton were in for Olivier Giroud then letting that drag out has probably cost us,” said Ball to Liverpool Echo.

“If Everton put a bid in while he’s on the beach in his flip flops and Arsenal accept it, he’d feel that he wasn’t wanted and would come to Goodison.

“Allowing Giroud to get settled back in ensured Everton missed out but I feel we could have got him if we’d have acted quicker.

“Obviously it was a busy time and they were getting the likes of Wayne Rooney in plus a lot of others but they knew there was going to be a big hole at centre-forward with Romelu Lukaku going and in hindsight we probably shouldn’t have let Rom go until we’d brought a replacement in.”