Everton captain Seamus Coleman could be handed a new contract in the near future, according to Paul Joyce.
Coleman’s current Toffees contract is set to expire this summer, having joined the Merseyside outfit from Sligo Rovers in 2009.
The long-serving right-back is currently expected to be sidelined for the rest of the season after a nasty knee injury suffered against Leicester on Monday (1 May), with Sean Dyche to give an exact prognosis of the injury on Thursday (4 April).
“Sean Dyche, the Everton manager, will give an exact prognosis on Coleman’s injury at his weekly press conference on Thursday,” Joyce wrote for The Times.
“A new contract has been mooted for Coleman, who was signed from Sligo Rovers for £60,000 in 2009 and has become a revered figure at the club, with Dyche praising his influence on and off the pitch last week.”
Coleman has been a superb servant for Everton for over a decade now, with the Republic of Ireland international rightfully handed the captain’s armband at Goodison Park for his leadership skills both on and off the pitch.
However, his absence is set to be a huge miss for the entire team and manager Sean Dyche, with the Toffees crying out for such leaders in their ongoing relegation fight.
Youngster Nathan Patterson looks set to try his best to fill Coleman’s boots for the last four matches of the season, but that is a big ask given how successful the Republic of Ireland veteran has been in the role over the years.
Coleman has definitely done enough to warrant an extension on Merseyside, but his future, and indeed the futures of other players looks likely to be settled only when the campaign has come to a close, such is the need to focus on results right now.
READ MORE:
Sean Dyche has taken a huge gamble that could cost Everton points and players
Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Goodison Park following Everton’s 2-2 draw with Leicester City
For a neutral, the 2-2 draw at the King Power Stadium was a brilliant game to watch but for Evertonians – or Leicester City fans – it was a roller-coaster of emotions and afterward, it felt like it was another game gone by for Everton in terms of being a winnable fixture.
Their manager Dean Smith said it was like a basketball game and he was right, it was end-to-end stuff. There was no composure and while we could have been a couple of goals up, we almost found ourselves two goals down at half-time.
It was another occasion under Sean Dyche that he seems to have let go and if we’d have been a bit cleverer on set-pieces or in some key moments, we could have taken all three points. I thought the effort that the players put in was fantastic, they battled for everything but it felt like Dyche let the game go by being stubborn.
I don’t think he’s treating every player the same. Of course, every manager has their favorites at every club but there are some players who have been dropped for being out of form while others seem to be making mistakes week in, week out.
Opposition teams are seeing that and playing upon it. Ahead of them playing Everton, they’re looking at what our weakness is and how they can exploit it.
Dyche though let that go when Leicester’s left-back Luke Thomas got booked very early on in the second half but then not one of our players tried to run at him. I was screaming: ‘Run at him, he’s all over the place.’
We could have got Demarai Gray on to provide some fresh legs with 10 minutes to go. He was going back to his old club with a point to prove and could have been brought on to run at a full-back who was on a yellow card, he might have a goal in him or be able to win a free-kick in a dangerous area.
I’d questioned the players in my column over the last few weeks, saying that I wanted to see them leaving everything out there and we did that against Leicester but in truth, they’d probably left everything out there after 80 minutes. Abdoulaye Doucoure was struggling after a lung-busting run, he couldn’t get back and finding it difficult just to walk back to the halfway line
James Garner took his opportunity really well after Amadou Onana’s illness with the timing of his passing and trying to get the ball forwards but he hasn’t had much game time and his legs were gone. A change could have just given us that momentum toward the end of the game.
A positive switch could have inspired Everton’s supporters to be even louder, it would have made the Leicester fans nervous but Dyche didn’t seem to spot that and that’s concerning to me. He’s seen players struggling over the past few games but hasn’t made a change to take them out of the firing line.
It’s like he’s got Plan A but won’t deviate from the system. That’s dangerous because every other team I see in the Premier League is making many changes, week after week.
Why is that? Because the Premier League is so demanding physically.
Dyche is risking our players to play over that pain barrier. Doucoure was that tired, he could have pulled a hamstring and been out for the rest of the run-in.
The way Dyche plays, it’s physically demanding anyway. The way he sets up his team, I don’t think we’ve got the fitness levels to do that for the full 90 minutes.
That’s why there are so many goals in the last five minutes of games because the clever players have that freshness to exploit opponents who are tired and I think Dyche has missed a trick by not playing that card because he’s seemingly scared to lose. Okay, we might have lost it but as that game was going on, it was screaming out that only Everton was going to win it.
However, if we show that same sort of commitment and desire that we showed against Leicester in our remaining fixtures, it gives me that bit more of a buzz and optimism that we might be able to do what is required to stay up because, after the Newcastle United game, I think everyone was down and out.
The Blues need leadership after Coleman’s injury
I’m absolutely gutted for Seamus Coleman, even though he hopefully isn’t as badly hurt as we feared after his positive injury update, but he’s our captain so who is going to be our leader now? I don’t think Yerry Mina is ever going to be an option for Dyche so he looks like he’s kicked his last ball for the club, so it could now be time for Conor Coady to come back into the side.
Everyone talks about his leadership and he was taken to the World Cup as part of the England squad because he’s so good around the dressing room. Of course, he had a wobble and was taken out of the side – which happens – but since Michael Keane came in we’ve conceded a lot of goals.
We need communication right now and level heads who can talk to help our defenders to defend and do their jobs properly. Look at Leicester’s first goal, we had the numbers back, we were actually overloaded.
Leicester put a simple ball in and we couldn’t defend it. There were too many people in and around but nobody was taking responsibility.
We lost the first header, we didn’t stop the second cross and then a center-half just walked past Keane who was unaware there was a guy next to him because he was ball-watching. We had nine players in the box and Leicester had two so that’s all about communication.
Leave a Reply