Joe Thomlinson, Patrick van Straaten and Chris Hamill spent plenty of time talking about Everton on the most recent edition of Football Daily’s Sunday Vibes and Hamill revealed that a potential injury to Seamus Coleman is his “only concern” for the Toffees, at present, during the show.
Everton have started the 2020/21 season very positively, earning all three points from all of their first four games of the campaign, leaving them sitting at the top of the Premier League at present.
However, despite the Toffees’ impressive form of late, Hamill shared some concern about the impact that an injury to 32-year-old Coleman could have on the Merseyside club during this recent edition of Football Daily’s Sunday Vibes.
He said: “Under [Marco] Silva, they were still quite reliant on [Lucas] Digne and Coleman to progress the ball – they’re still quite like that now, actually.
“So my only concern for them moving forward is if Coleman does get injured, the right-back alternative looks like Jonjoe Kenny, and Tom Davies can be utilised at right-back as well, but that kind of changes the way they progress the ball up the pitch, so it’s like – can Seamus Coleman at [32] with a couple of niggling injuries, can he put up a 30-plus-game season?”
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So, as can be seen in what Hamill had to say, it seems as though he is concerned about the likelihood of the 32-year-old right-back getting sidelined at some point in the campaign and the impact it might have on the team’s ability to progress the ball, as he indicated that he isn’t sure the Toffees’ only other natural right-back option in the first-team squad – 23-year-old Kenny – is a good enough alternative to the Republic of Ireland international.
Coleman has featured in all four of the Toffees’ Premier League games this season and according to WhoScored, he has made the third-highest number of dribbles per game (1.3) of any Everton player in England’s top-flight so far this term.
With that in mind, it may be fair to say that Coleman has played an important role for Everton this season in terms of carrying the ball forward and it may be understandable why Hamill has some concerns about how his absence from the squad could impact this area of Everton’s game.
Coleman has spent some time on the sidelines in most seasons over the past decade, so it certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibility that he will be sidelined once again at some point this term and if he is, then it will be interesting to see if this does have a big impact on Everton’s ball progression or if Kenny proves to be an adequate replacement.