On the latest episode of the Royal Blue podcast, Phil Kirkbride, Adam Jones and Sam Carroll discussed the latest goings-on at Everton.
One topic of conversation on the recent episode was the fitness of Fabian Delph. The former Manchester City man has been out injured with a muscle strain since before the restart of the Premier League, with his last appearance for the Toffees coming all the way back in February.
Here’s what Jones had to say about the England international:
“I think central midfield is probably the area where you’re looking towards the most improvement, I think especially in the first half against Norwich, it was an area that Everton were struggling in quite a lot.
“The more options that we can get in that area, the better and we’ve already got [Jean-Philippe] Gbamin out injured, we’ve offloaded [Morgan] Schneiderlin now, so we need Delph to be fit as soon as possible. It is a continued setback that he just keeps being out injured.
“It really is a frustration and it was maybe something that people picked up on when he first joined as well, that he had a fairly rocky injury record over the last few years.
“It’s a bit of a shame that it’s continued since he’s joined Everton because he was brought in to be that sort of level head and experience in that in the midfield area.”
Kirkbride also stated on the midfielder: “Without labouring the point on Delph, I think he’s been the biggest frustration of all the injuries for me.”
TIF Thoughts…
So far this season, Delph has averaged a disappointing 6.49 rating across his 16 appearances in the Premier League (per Whoscored), so perhaps it isn’t too much of a setback for Carlo Ancelotti that he has spent periods absent through injury.
In the absence of the 30-year-old midfield man, the Blues have secured two wins and a draw since the Premier League restart, which has put them in with an outside chance of earning a place in the Europa League next season.
Is Delph a big miss in this Everton side?
Yes
No
Despite Delph’s poor form this season, we can understand Jones’ argument that they need him back fit as soon as possible, as Ancelotti has been forced to name two goalkeepers on the bench in recent fixtures in order to make up the numbers, in the form of Maarten Stekelenburg and Joao Virginia, so you could certainly make the argument that he is low on first-team numbers at the moment, especially with Gbamin also injured and Schneiderlin having departed.