With all the focus on the critical need for a right back, the lack of experienced left-back cover, and talk around potential additional reinforcements in the forward areas at Everton, few Evertonian minds were on the centre-back position ahead of the upcoming transfer deadline.
The revelation in Paddy Boyland’s [exclusive for _The Athletic_](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7535260/2026/08/24/jake-obrien-everton-future-transfer/) that not only has Jake O’Brien expressed a desire to leave the club before the transfer deadline, but Everton are now encouraging offers from other clubs for the Irish international was both unexpected and yet not altogether unsurprising.
A centre-back by trade — and, it has now been admitted, by preference — O’Brien spent almost all of last season playing out of position at full-back. This preseason followed a familiar pattern with the 25-year-old again asked to play at a right-back with the veteran Michael Keane getting the majority of the minutes in the centre.
Having made it known to the management that he wanted to get back to playing in his favoured role, O’Brien was left out of the lineup to face Crystal Palace at the weekend as Merlin Röhl was deployed on the right side of defence and club captain, James Tarkowski, partnered Jarrad Branthwaite.
From a squad strength perspective, David Moyes has healthy competition for the starting centre-back positions. However, there is a sense that O’Brien wants guarantees of regular first-team minutes this season which Everton look unlikely to be able to do if Branthwaite is fit and with Keane seeming to be the manager’s go-to alternative.
Of course, Branthwaite has struggled to remain fit since emerging as one of the finest centre-back prospects in the country. He missed significant portions of the last two seasons with soft-tissue injuries, and there are, of course, while everyone hopes he does, there are no guarantees that he will be able to play a full season this time around either.
Certainly where the supporters were concerned, this campaign was the one where they were hoping that O’Brien would gradually be phased into the starting role alongside Branthwaite and that Tarkowski, 34 in November, would be eased out.
So the O’Brien news is something of a curve ball for fans who were looking forward to the new partnership, even if those inside the club were perhaps more aware of the Irishman’s thinking.
The hope, therefore, is that as a result the recruitment team will already have been lining up a replacement, but the proximity of the transfer deadline is unsettling, particularly in view of how long it has taken the club to find a right- back.
Everton would _have_ to sign a new centre-back; there is no question of that. The club simply cannot gamble on the next few months, at least, with just Branthwaite, Keane and Tarkowski as their only available options in that part of the pitch.
And if O’Brien were to leave, along with Nathan Patterson, it would ratchet up both the urgency to sign a right-back and also bring in centre-half cover. The oft-linked Ben White could, of course, fill either role but he has a chequered injury record of his own. Much better that that Blues seek a younger defender, perhaps equally as versatile, but one also able to reliably contribute straight away if needed.
Depending on if and how quickly any deal for the sale of O’Brien happens, it will add layer of complexity to what was already expected to be a hectic end to the window. Moyes is said to have been eyeing four new faces before the deadline and he and the rest of the recruitment setup could now be scrambling around for a fifth.
Much should rest on just how badly O’Brien wants to leave, whether the club risks keeping a discontented player for the season should he stay (has his request opened a rift with Moyes?) or whether, with Tim Iroegbunam’s move to Hull City having stalled, Everton need to engineer a sale to fund the rest of their transfer business.
In most other respects, selling O’Brien at this stage doesn’t seem to make much sense. With a decent record with the side when playing at centre-back, he would go from being Tarkowski’s natural successor to creating an awkward void in the squad that will have to be filled in short order. Again, you’d have to hope the requisite ducks are in a row in that eventuality.
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