Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Hill Dickinson Stadium during the international break
Everton tried - and failed - to bring in a right-back this summer, so could David Moyes now turn to a player who has turned out more than anyone else for the club in the Premier League to address his problem position? Now the autumn international breaks are over, Everton now have our longest run of fixtures without interruptions, which will be a massive test. We’ve got eight games before the end of the calendar year and only three of them are at home, so it’s going to be tough for the whole group, so the squad is going to be really important for David Moyes during his period.
It’s been a positive break on the whole, particularly for the Irish connection with Seamus Coleman and Jake O’Brien both starting back-to-back wins that keep their country in contention for a World Cup place. They were a couple of unbelievable results, but more importantly for David Moyes, our club captain got valuable minutes under his belt, alongside Jake, with both of them putting in top performances.
The pair of them will be coming back to Finch Farm full of confidence and Seamus is still going to be really important for us this season – both on and off the pitch – has got some crucial minutes in his legs to show he’s not a bit-part player for his international team. At 37, he played the full 90 minutes of the 2-0 win over Portugal on Thursday and then another hour of the 3-2 comeback victory in Hungary on Sunday.
Seamus was playing wing-back too, a position I’ve played in myself, and I know it’s one of the toughest, energy-draining positions on the football pitch. You’ve got to get all the way up and all the way down the flank.
Being out and on the sidelines is always frustrating and Seamus will want to play. Not playing for a long time and then having two games in quick succession can hurt your body as it puts a lot of strain on it, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.
He’s done that twice for Ireland now in as many months so that will give David Moyes confidence that when his captain is called upon, he’s going to be ready to go. Seamus has got a great mentality and he knows where he stands in his career right now, but he always keeps himself sharp.
He’s there to be called upon because right-back at this time is in a scratch your head moment for David Moyes. Jake O’Brien has done fantastically well there filling in, but he’s shown for Ireland he can also play very comfortably as centre-back in a three.
We played James Garner at right-back last time out and he can do a job there for you and put a shift in. But with quite a few away matches among this busy run, it could be an opportunity for Seamus to pull on that royal blue jersey again and bring some natural defensive know-how to the role, especially when you’ve got a player like Iliman Ndiaye in front of you.
With it being such hectic period, it’s going to be really important that the manager calls upon some of those squad players who haven’t featured so much this season. There’s been a lot of talk suggesting that David Moyes hasn’t given certain players enough minutes so far, but this isn’t a game that’s just for fun.
Not only should the players deserve their opportunity, also you need people you can rely upon and trust to finish matches or do the job you require. It should never be about giving out minutes just for the sake of it as it’s a very important business.
However, we know that Idrissa Gueye and Iliman Ndiaye are probably going to be heading off to the Africa Cup of Nations in the New Year, so their replacements have got to get up to speed pretty soon, so I’d expect to start seeing more of the squad before then. The problem is that some of these understudies have let us down in the past and David Moyes will have that in his head.
Because of that, we want to see more determination from certain individuals and better body language.
When Dwight McNeil replaced an injured Ndiaye in the last away game at Sunderland, David Moyes said that was because he’d done well in training, so that was a message not just to Tyler Dibling but to everyone in the squad to tell them that if they put a shift in at Finch Farm, they will have a chance. If you’re not in the starting 11 then you’re playing catch-up compared to the starters and having to go above and beyond to change the manager’s mind.
We know that David Moyes wants hard workers, he’s said it in his press conferences a few times now, there are no hidden agendas at Everton. This is now an opportunity to get into some real match rhythm as we’ve won our last game going into each of the international breaks so far this season, but sometimes you just want to play again after results like those.
You can spend all season playing catch-up as a late arrival
David Moyes eventually got his nine signings he wanted for Everton this summer but he was concerned that too many of them were arriving late in the window and that might be why we haven't seen as much as we'd have expected from some of our new faces.
It’s often an issue when you’re looking to get deals done and the players have been at other clubs. You wonder whether they’ve been training at a high standard and whether they’ve been getting pushed to the levels they are at Finch Farm or not before they made their move.
Obviously, it’s only once you get them through the door that you can assess them and see that they’re at the same levels as those in the rest of the squad. That could well have been the case for our last game against Fulham when Tim Iroegbunam got the nod ahead of Merlin Rohl, who didn’t arrive until transfer deadline day because he’s had a full pre-season at Everton.
Missing parts of pre-season is one of the biggest frustrations for every footballer, because you’re waiting all summer to get back fit. Then when you do become available again, you’re putting your body through a lot of strain to try and show your manager that you’re ready for it.
You can maybe get away with it for the first couple of games, but then little niggles start happening and you can start breaking down. If a player has a full pre-season, then he can often cruise through the rest of the campaign.
This could be the turning point of the season. If we get good points and good performances from this run of games, it can change the whole feeling for the fans for the rest of the campaign and instil some positivity, because we don’t want to be looking over our shoulder, we want to be looking up that league table and seeing who we can catch as you can see how tight it is so far.