James Tarkowski spoke following his comeback game after being introduced as a substitute in Everton’s 2-1 loss to West Ham United at Chicago’s Soldier Field

Fit-again James Tarkowski agrees with manager David Moyes that Everton need to beef up their squad by admitting: “It’s obvious that we need bodies through the door.”

Although teenage left-back Adam Aznou could now team up with the Blues in Atlanta after completing his transfer from Bayern Munich, striker Thierno Barry is the only new outfield signing currently on tour with the club in the USA. Tarkowski, who came off the bench in the 69th minute when Everton were already 2-1 down to West Ham United, for his first outing since he went off with a hamstring injury against Manchester City on April 19, said:

“It’s obvious that we need bodies through the door. Who that will be, only time will tell.”

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The 32-year-old added: “For us, as players, it’s funny, because you want people to sign but also there are players who could come in and compete for your position. We all want to be playing, week in, week out.

“I’m sure there will be faces to come in because we’ve lost quite a few players through the summer but for us it’s not working with the group we’ve got right now because we’ve got a good few players in there who performed well for us last season and got us results.”

In terms of his own comeback, Tarkowski, who started 109 consecutive Premier League games for Everton before going under the knife, said: “It feels good. There’s a lot of hard work gone into it.

“It’s been a long summer, but I’m happy to be there and hopefully there will be a few more minutes to come in the next few weeks when the season starts.

“I haven’t felt like there’s been a mental issue with it all. I accepted it all quite early and just prepared myself to work as hard as I can to get back where I was and even better.

“Hopefully, I’m physically good now and can come and perform again. We were always a bit cautious of putting an exact timeline on it really.

“There were markers we needed to hit over the weeks and as they started to come, I started to progress quite well. I’ve been around the group for a few weeks now and fitness wise I feel really good, it’s just about getting that match sharpness that will hopefully be there in the coming weeks.”

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Everton have now lost back-to-back fixtures in the Premier League Summer Series with just one more match remaining against Manchester United at Atlanta’s Mercedez-Benz Arena on Sunday.

Although Tarkowski acknowledges the tour has not been an easy one for the Blues, he and his team-mates are still looking forward to the dawn of a new era next month when they play their first game in front of fans at a sold out 52,769 capacity Hill Dickinson Stadium. He said: “These games are difficult. The pitches aren’t as good as they are back home and tonight was very windy.

“We’re still preparing and we’re working hard over the days before, so everyone is fresh-legged and 100%.

“But there are definitely things to be worked on as that’s five goals (conceded) in two games and we need to start stopping it from going in the net, but it was nice to get a goal.”

On the move to the Mersey waterfront, the Mancunian added: “We’ve got to be excited. We’ve had a tough few years and this feels like a refresh with the new stadium, new ownership and the manager has only been here a few months and we had a good end to last season and the move to the new stadium has got to be a big positive.”