Everton claimed an easy 1-0 victory at Tottenham yesterday to get their new season off to an ideal start. Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s goal proved sufficient for the visitors to come away with full points.
Italian boss Carlo Ancelotti featured all his new recruits in the starting XI, as James Rodriguez, Allan and Abdoulaye Doucoure all displayed their skills in the Toffees’ midfield.
All three newcomers gave good performances and looked great value for the money the club expended. However, the former Real Madrid manager seemed particularly impressed with Rodriguez and called the Colombia international’s performance as ‘outstanding’.
He said (as quoted by Liverpool Echo):
“He has no problem to adapt to the Premier League because we are now playing a different sport!
“It’s football, the pitch is the same everywhere.
“But he has to adapt to his new team-mates and know their movements and his team-mates have to adapt to know his quality better.”
“He did four days of training and his performance was outstanding. This is what he can do on the pitch.”
The 29-year-old looked very lively and created a number of chances for his fellow players.
James has the experience of playing at some of the best clubs in the world and the Toffees will be hoping that he can help them finish higher up the table. The initial signs suggest that he could do just that for the English side.
For a debut, it went perfectly for the Colombian star. He played superbly all game and some of his passes into the forward areas were absolutely brilliant.
He started his career at Envigado and after spells at Banfield, Porto and Monaco, he landed a move to Real Madrid in 2014 where he clocked up 125 appearances in all competitions for the Spanish giants, smashing 37 goals and creating 42 assists.
While during his two-year loan stint at Bayern Munich, the 29-year-old earned 67 total appearances with 15 goals to his name.
