Greg O’Keeffe has claimed on the All Together Now podcast that Everton could be looking to sell Yerry Mina, who joined for around £27 million back in 2018.
The Colombian centre-back has regularly featured under several Everton managers whenever fit, however, his fitness is the key problem for him, which was highlighted on Tuesday evening when he was forced off early in the first half with a muscular injury.
Should Everton sell Yerry Mina?
Yes!
No!
Mina has picked up 11 injuries and missed 28 games since he joined Everton from Barcelona back in 2018, but if the Toffees want to build a solid defensive base moving forward, they need to have defenders who can be relied upon when it comes to starting every week.
As a result, O’Keeffe believes that Mina could be shown out the door this summer.
He said: “I don’t think I’ve known a season like this for injuries for us. It’s just completely destabilised everything we’ve tried to build at any key moment on the pitch or in terms of runs of games, it’s been horrendous.
“Yerry Mina is so important when he’s playing, but we can’t rely on him and I think that that’s an established pattern now. So I do think that there’s probably going to have to be a school of thought of selling him in the summer.”
TIF Thoughts on Mina…
As O’Keeffe alluded to on the podcast, Mina is seen as an important player for Everton, which may explain why he is usually thrown into the starting lineup whenever fit, but that overreliance on him may well be costing him in terms of worsening his condition.
Meanwhile, the club have only signed one centre-back since Mina joined in 2018 when they bought Ben Godfrey, who has been shunned out as a full-back both last season and this season.
And amid rumours linking the likes of Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin with moves away, Mina could well be the latest Toffees player to feature heavily on the rumour mill if O’Keeffe’s hunch turns out to be correct.
So if Mina can’t stay fit, there appears to be very little reason to keep him about on his reported £120,000-per-week wages (via Spotrac), so it may make sense for the Toffees to bite the bullet and ship him on for anything close to the £27 million they shelled out for him a few years ago.
In other news: Journalist excited about Lampard’s ‘clever’ Finch Farm move at Everton