It was perhaps telling last month when Everton director of football Kevin Thelwell namechecked James Garner among the first team squad’s list of potential right-backs, highlighting how the former Manchester United player had turned out there for Lee Carsley’s triumphant England side at last year’s UEFA European Under-21 Championships.
Garner has made no secret of his preference to operate in central midfield but with the Blues engine room currently looking like a pretty crowded place, there may well be a future for him in this other area of the pitch.
The starting right-back has changed for each one of Everton’s seven Premier League matches so far this season and while Garner has been among those four different faces to occupy the role – along with Ashley Young, Roman Dixon and club captain Seamus Coleman (Nathan Patterson is yet to feature) – he hasn’t been picked yet in the centre of the park.
A VAR check denied Garner a smart assist when his lofted cross met the head of Abdoulaye Doucoure but the moment showed, not for the first time, what an asset he can be when delivering from wide areas.
The Birkenhead-born player was kept on his toes defensively against fleet-footed fellow Merseysider Anthony Gordon and Joelinton but while at this stage of his career he remains something of a square peg in a round hole, Dyche has shown that he’s not afraid of drafting in players from elsewhere in this area as he showed with Ben Godfrey in the second half of last season.
Continuing with the summer ‘reset’ the Blues boss has spoken about in terms of adopting a more expansive approach, Garner would bring that and at 23 he is over a decade the junior of his opposite number Kieran Trippier, who intriguingly was linked with a potential transfer to Everton late in the summer transfer window.Back in 2019, Jordan Pickford saved another penalty against Newcastle United but the two performances from five-and-a-half years ago and now were as different as night and day, or black and white as you might say.
Although the Magpies snubbed their traditional stripes here to instead wear the colours of their financial backers, the sovereign wealth fund of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
