Richard Keys: Everton player of the season Conor Coady Wolves absence suggests massive problems
Conor Coady is the player of the season at Everton and could have made a difference in the defeat to Wolves, according to Richard Keys.
The England defender was unavailable for the painful 2-1 defeat at Goodison Park on Monday (26 December) as he is on loan from the Molineux side.
Keys has singled out Coady, centre-back partner James Tarkowski, and keeper Jordan Pickford as the bright spots of an increasingly “awful” season and suggested that the club is in a major mess behind the scenes if they haven’t yet made the 29-year-old’s move permanent.
Writing in his latest blog post on Tuesday (27 December) he said: “How long has Frank Lampard got I wonder? I don’t blame him entirely for Everton’s awful season so far.
“What are they doing at Goodison? Haven’t they got £4m quid to turn their on-loan player of the season into a permanent signing? Conor Coady couldn’t play v Wolves for that reason. He’s on-loan from them. He might not have made a difference to Everton – but I fancy he would’ve done.
“If there’s one thing Everton can take from their miserable campaign it’s that they’ve been very good defensively. The trio of Coady, Tarkowski and Pickford have some well.
“If Everton don’t have £4m for Coady that tells me there are massive financial problems yet to be revealed.”
Storm coming?
Tarkowksi doesn’t get the attention that either of his defensive teammates do and might have his own claim for being the player of the season but he suffers as much as anyone without his partner in the middle of the back line beside him.
Lampard wants Coady to be kept long-term and it feels like it is a foregone conclusion that the permanent option will be triggered at some point.
So it is tempting to write off Keys’ suggestion that there is a financial disaster hiding round the corner as sensationalism in the wake of a dramatic and damaging defeat.
Everton should have had, and frankly did have, enough to get three points against Julen Lopetegui’s side on Boxing Day, so missing Coady for one game shouldn’t have been a huge problem especially since it was his replacement Yerry Mina who found the net.
But the subsequent confusion surrounding Pickford’s missing contract extension coming hot on the heels of the Wolves loss is sending out some worrying signals.
For the first quarter of the season the Toffees defence was performing as well as any in the league, so the assumption would be that the club would want to keep that unit as secure as possible, but with questions raised around both Pickford and Coady’s futures within days of each other does leave an uneasy feeling of what might be behind it.