EXCLUSIVE: Michael Keane spoke to ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley ahead of the Premier League Summer Series game against Manchester United
Michael Keane has tipped Everton to ultimately get it right in this summer’s transfer window and believes the return to fitness of James Tarkowski is a huge boost to the team.
With manager David Moyes appearing to adopt a more upbeat tone when it came to transfers ahead of this game, Keane is going into the new season in positive mood in the hope that Everton can acquire the recruits they need to give them a fitting team to grace their 52,769 capacity new home on the Mersey waterfront.
He told the ECHO: “I think it’s really exciting times. Obviously, we’re going into the new stadium and all the changes that come with that with the new owners and big changes within the club player-wise and staff-wise, there’s been a lot going on and continues to be a lot going on.
“It’s definitely an exciting time to be here and I’m sure the club will be in a better place come the end of the transfer window than we were at the end of the last one. Hopefully we can start the season positively and have a good year.”
After a run of 109 consecutive starts after signing from the Blues, Tarkowski suffered a hamstring injury in the 2-0 home defeat to Manchester City on April 19, and after undergoing an operation, had not featured on the pitch until he came on as a substitute for the final 21 minutes of Everton’s 2-1 loss to West Ham United in Chicago’s Soldier Field on Wednesday. Hailing his fellow centre-back’s recovery, Keane said: “I’ve seen how hard he worked to get back. It’s a nasty injury that he’s had.
“We’re really pleased to have him back and hopefully he can get even stronger now. Like anyone with a long-term injury, it can take time to get match fit but he’s looked really good in training and he’s so important to the squad because he’s so reliable and consistent.
“If he can stay fit and get stronger, and match fit, that’s great for us. The sooner he’s ready to go, the better.”
Keane also lifted the lid on his own injury that prevented him from featuring in the opening game of the Premier League Summer Series.
The £25million signing from Burnley has been at Everton since 2017, and penned a new one-year deal this summer, took part in the Blues’ open training session at the Icahn Stadium the day after the team arrived, but having sat out the small-side game at the end of the session, he subsequently was left out of the matchday squad against Bournemouth.
Asked what the nature of his injury was, the 32-year-old said: “I just had a small issue with my quad. It just kept me out of training for five days or so.
“I think it was more fatigue than anything else, but it was just precautionary really and I didn’t want to make it worse. I just had a few days taking it easy and picked it up again.”
Everton’s limited numbers have meant that Vitalii Mykolenko and Jake O’Brien have both played the full 180 minutes so far, but while that will have been tough in the conditions, Keane believes it could have long term benefits in terms of stamina building. He said: “I think it’s been really good. The results haven’t been great but from the point of the squad and the purpose of getting fitter and gaining match fitness, it’s been good because we don’t have many senior players and that’s meant that a lot of us have had to play a lot of minutes, maybe more so than we would have done in a normal pre-season with a fuller squad and hopefully, we’ll feel the benefits of that in a few weeks.
“Hopefully the lads who are getting a lot of minutes will feel sharp at the start of the season.
"We expect that there will be new faces coming in the building and it can sometimes take those players a bit of time to get up to speed, so everyone who is here now has got to be ready to play if called upon.”