What Phil Jagielka’s Injury Means For Everton
Everton was dealt a serious injury blow on Saturday when Phil Jagielka suffered a serious knee injury after a challenge by Arsenal’s Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Initial reports estimate that Jagielka will miss at least two months of action which would put his return after Christmas. Everton will be forced to insert 24-year-old centre back Ramiro Funes Mori in their captain’s place.
Manager Roberto Martinez will need to spend his energy worrying about how his Toffees can cope with Jagielka’s absence as opposed to commenting on the “stupid” challenge in the press. His side already find themselves off to a less than desirable start with just 13 points through 10 matches.
The obvious, like-for-like, swap will be to play young Funes Mori along with John Stones at centre back. While Funes Mori has performed well in his two appearances this season, he still lacks Premier League experience. With all due respect to the former River Plate product, the jury is out on whether or not he can be an effective starter at this level.
One large concern will be his lack of pace that could be exposed by Premier League attackers. Fortunately, the presence of John Stones as his partner should shield him from pacy attackers. He also must be cautious not to give in to the rash challenges that caused him some trouble in the Argentinian League. Such rash behavior at Everton could lead them even thinner at the back.
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While the loss in the Funes Mori-Jagielka substitution is troubling, the real cost for Everton may be in the midfield. None of Everton’s defensive-minded midfielders have played particularly well this year and this will place them under even more pressure. Gareth Barry really functions almost exclusively as a defensive midfielder for them already and his play has been average at best on the year. He must pick up his play to compensate for Jagielka’s absence.
James McCarthy has a lot of room for improvement as well, and he will likely have to take up a more defensive role to protect the back four. Ironically, this may help McCarthy in a strange way by forcing him to be more focused on the pitch. If he isn’t permitted the license to play as a box-to-box midfielder his performance will likely improve.
The real opportunity-loss may exist with more defensive duties being placed at Ross Barkley’s feet. He is best suited to play as an attacking midfielder, behind the striker as a No 10. To be frank, he is at his best when he is not expected to track back very often. He is a brilliant attacking player, but looks like a newborn foal when asked to put in a challenge. Given the relative ineptitude of Everton’s wide attackers on the young season I’m not convinced they can continue to produce a sufficient amount of offense if Barkley isn’t completely focused on the attack.
The loss of Phil Jagielka will be felt heavily by Everton. They cannot cope with his absence just with one replacement, they can only do so with added defensive contributions from their other starters; especially their midfielders. Counter intuitively, this may make Everton a better defensive team in the short-term based on their increased attention to defense. What it won’t make them as a better team, because the increased defensive attention will be the detriment to their talented attack.