Christian Norgaard was one of four Everton players to speak at the Men in Blazers event with Roger Bennett at Hill Dickinson Stadium
New signing Christian Norgaard revealed at the Men in Blazers live event with Roger Bennett at Hill Dickinson Stadium on Monday he has “a small injury” but hopes to make his Everton debut soon.
The midfielder, who was joined on stage by Blues team-mates James Garner, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and fellow summer signing Hayden Hackney, in front of an audience that included the club’s chief executive Angus Kinnear and technical director Nick Cox, joined from Arsenal for an undisclosed fee understood to be £7million on August 5 but did not feature in any of Everton’s friendlies.
Asked by lifelong Evertonian Bennett what Gunners boss Mikel Arteta, who himself played as a midfielder for the Blues during David Moyes’ first spell in charge, told him about playing for the club, Norgaard said: “He told me many amazing things about the club and about the manager he knows very well, the culture of the club and the fans of the club.
“Eventually it felt like a no-brainer for me to come here. It was a match for where I am in my career and also the type of person I am.
“How I have been received by the fans and my team-mates is incredible. It’s about what happens out there (on the pitch) and I’m missing at the moment.
“That is a little bit frustrating. I have a small injury at the moment but soon, hopefully I’ll be ready and I can’t wait to get out there for the first time.
“We’re hopefully close, I can’t really put a time frame on it. I feel like we are getting very close, so not too long.”
Norgaard, who also revealed he had taken the number 23 shirt because former club captain Seamus Coleman was “a fantastic player,” explained his mindset on joining Everton.
He said: “A lot of it comes to proving to myself. Having had that role in the changing room over the last year was a different experience and I enjoyed it, but I also missed playing football and just being able to play minutes after minutes and games after games.
“That’s the feeling I miss and having the opportunity to come to this club where there are over 50,000 crazy fans in the stadium supporting you and valuing hard work and your best effort, those are the type of things that I miss showing the world I can do.”
Bennett showed a clip of Norgaard heading in a goal at the back post for Brentford from a long throw-in in their first Premier League game against Arsenal in 2021 and the 32-year-old believes the Blues can emulate the prowess from dead ball situations that he showed with the Bees.
He said: “I don’t know what the secret is but it’s something I’ve developed over my career and being at a club like Brentford where they worked so intensely on set-pieces made me learn a lot. Hopefully I can bring this to Everton because there is so much height and so much size in the team.
“I don’t see why Everton should not be one of the best teams in the league when it comes to set-pieces.”