Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Hill Dickinson Stadium ahead of Everton's game with Manchester United
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Jake O’Brien’s suspension presents Everton manager David Moyes with a dilemma at right-back against Manchester United.
James Garner has been absolutely fantastic, especially when the Africa Cup of Nations was taking place and we were missing Idrissa Gueye, he came into his own. He puffed his chest out and won his new contract.
He’s earned the right to have a run of games in his favoured position, but now, with Jake O’Brien’s suspension, there is an opportunity to put him back to right-back, although I wouldn’t do that. For me, those days are gone now, we’re safe.
We don’t want to be putting square pegs in round holes again. This is another opportunity for Nathan Patterson, and I thought he did well in his last outing, to have a run of games.
There have been question marks about his ability when he’s come into the side previously, but it’s so hard playing catch-up when you’re not up to match rhythm. For me, if he’s fit and ready to go then you’ve just got to stick with him.
If you gave Patterson a run then you could rest O’Brien when he returns from suspension given that he’s played a lot of minutes and had a lot of leg work, as like Jarrad Branthwaite at Brighton, his body won’t have been used to running the kind of distances you put in at full-back rather than centre-back. Jake can recharge his batteries and when he does come back into the side, it can be in his favoured position at the heart of defence and that in turn could provide the opportunity to give a rest to James Tarkowski, who has played every minute this term after recovering from a hamstring injury, but has had an up and down season.
I’d rather see a natural full-back in the position going forwards. I think the trial and error of putting centre-halves out there has work on the odd occasion, but if you do it on a consistent basis then you can get found out, as happened in the last game.
We want to stop crosses and we want full-backs who can push forwards. Vitalii Mykolenko is struggling on the other side, he’s going forwards but he’s not always playing with confidence.
I thought he was at fault for Bournemouth’s equaliser, but if I were him, I’d also have been waiting for my goalkeeper to come and get the ball because the opponent is heading it in the six-yard box after a cross that came in from 40 yards away. I think in his head, Jordan Pickford felt that he could have come for that, so when they scored the second goal, he tried to redeem himself and ended up getting caught in no man’s land.
While he’s a fantastic shot stopper, when it comes to coming for crosses and dealing with them, it seems he’s too busy talking to his back four. Rather than reading the flight, it feels like he’d rather stay on his line and try and block the shot.
Garner has been good on the ball when he’s played at full-back, but defensively, he hasn’t been able to stop crosses either. For me, you get more understanding and balance in the side when people are playing in their favoured positions.
We’ve had to peg people into various roles this season because we didn’t have the options. However, other than long-term absentee Jack Grealish, it’s a full-strength squad now, so there are no excuses.
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