EXCLUSIVE: Everton's defensive set-up under David Moyes has been examined by one of his former captains Alan Stubbs
Former Everton captain Alan Stubbs believes David Moyes now faces a “conundrum” in defence with the centre-back partnership going forwards potentially changing. And he reckons the Blues boss might be speaking to the current skipper about his antics last weekend.
Everton’s 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest was their fourth victory and fourth clean sheet in their last five games.
And Stubbs, who made 193 appearances for the Blues and scored seven goals across two spells, told the ECHO: “David Moyes has now got a nice conundrum to have in defence. After his display at Bournemouth, had Jake O’Brien had the option, he’d have probably have wanted to start at centre-back on Saturday, I’m pretty sure.
“But he only came in for one game there with Michael Keane being out, and the manager has shown loyalty to what Michael Keane has done since he’s been in the team, which is only fair. I think Jake O’Brien’s time will come, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
“Going forwards in the future, I think we all potentially understand that Jake O’Brien and Jarrad Branthwaite is the next step in terms of a partnership. But I think Everton have got great options in terms of the centre-backs now.
“Michael Keane has been excellent this season. He’s done far better than what everybody would have thought.
“Jarrad has had his disappointments with his injuries, which shows you how well they’ve done in that they’ve not missed him greatly. I think that’s a huge compliment to the centre-halves who have stepped in during his absence.”
Forest are understood to have lodged a complaint to the PGMOL over James Tarkowski’s off the ball clash with Dan Ndoye going unpunished.
The Everton captain barged into the Forest player’s back with his own torso and speaking in his post-match press conference, visiting boss Sean Dyche, who managed the 32-year-old at both Turf Moor and Goodison Park, revealed he’d told Tarkowski he couldn’t believe he’d got away with it.
Stubbs, who was speaking via Casino.org, the go-to platform helping British players in finding online casino sites, said: “I noticed it live and I thought he might do well to get away with this. I thought VAR might have stepped in and deemed that violent conduct.
“I’m glad they didn’t but I thought James Tarkowski was lucky. I think the incident was unnecessary and he didn’t need to get involved in anything like that.
“In another game, I think somebody might have seen that differently. I think David Moyes might be having a quiet word in his ear and telling him that there’s no need for that and you need to be careful.”
The result saw the Blues move up to fifth place on Saturday night but as they go into these weekend’s fixtures sitting seventh in the Premier League table, lifelong Evertonian has exercised caution ahead of their final two pre-Christmas fixtures against Chelsea and leaders, Arsenal.
The 54-year-old from Kirkby, who steered Hibernian to their first Scottish Cup in 114 years in 2016, said: “If you’re the owners, The Friedkin Group, if you look where Everton were when they re-appointed David Moyes and where the team are now, they will be hugely satisfied with the way things are going right now. I’m trying to be careful, and play devil’s advocate, but we perhaps just have to dampen expectations a little bit.
“Enjoy it while you can and it’s great that Everton are looking up because over the past five years, we’ve been looking over our shoulders, but we have to understand where we were.
“It’s a nice distraction for the Everton faithful, and like David Moyes said in his first spell: ‘Let’s enjoy it while we can’. and I suppose he’ll be saying that to the players now.
“They’re in a great run of form but we’ve got two tough games coming up now. We’d have said that about Manchester United and Bournemouth away though, but I think this next two are a level up again, although for me, they’re a couple of free hits now because of the results we’ve already got from our previous matches.”