Journalist Greg O’Keeffe has been speaking on the All Together Now podcast about how he’d look to move on Yerry Mina from Everton in January.
Everton have long been tasked with the almost impossible of keeping Mina fit and firing, particularly over the last few seasons, as since the start of the 2019/20 campaign, the centre-back has only been able to start 35 league games.
That’s something which is not good enough for a Premier League club, especially when Mina is said to be the club’s highest earner at £120,000 a week according to Spotrac, so it’s not insane to think about moving him on when possible.
O’Keeffe was asked if he could sell anyone in January, and indeed admitted it would be Mina.
He said: “I would say – and this might be a controversial one, actually, because I can see why people might disagree with me – but I would say I’d sell Yerry Mina because there might be a club in Italy or Spain who might look at him.
“When he’s fit, fantastic central defender. The problem is, he’s never fit. You can’t rely on him.
Should Everton sell Mina?
Yes!
No!
“I don’t think that’s going to change now. I just think that he’s not robust enough for England. So given there’s a World Cup on the horizon, I would probably go with Yerry Mina.”
TIF Thoughts on Mina’s Everton future…
Given that Mina was brought in from Barcelona for a high fee in the region of £27m, more would surely have been expected from the centre-back, however, whenever he’s on the pitch, his presence is certainly felt.
This is because just last season, Mina finished the league campaign with the highest points-per-match ratio of players to have started a league game (FBref), but his fitness record arguably outweighs those performances which are few and far between – although when he was fit, former Everton ace Michael Ball labelled the defender as a ‘monster’.
The Colombian has missed far too many games since moving to Goodison Park and that is simply why O’Keeffe has decided he’d be the player to move on, especially given Everton now have James Tarkowski and Conor Coady as first-choice options under Frank Lampard.