Big step ups required from Mina and Holgate as Everton fail to replace Zouma

THE reputation of Everton’s Director of Football Marcel Brands took its first significant hit on Thursday as the club failed to sign a centre-back. Unable to persuade Chelsea to sell Kurt Zouma or source a replacement, Marco Silva’s task of building on last season’s impressive defensive performances just got harder.

This is a big one to get wrong. In Everton’s last 11 Premier League games, they kept eight clean sheets – four were against the top six, one in the Merseyside derby stopped something terrible happening. Defence was the anchor for Silva when his first season began to drift; there is no excuse for leaving him stranded at the start of his second.

Chelsea’s transfer ban always made a move unlikely. The opportunity for Zouma to play at the club where he signed a long-term deal, in the Champions League, coached by a club legend, was always going to appeal more. We’ve known this all summer. Contingency plans were not only advisable, they were required. Persevere with Zouma if you wish, but have plans B, C and D ready for the inevitable. And what were plans B, C and D? Loan offers for Fikayo Tomori, Chris Smalling, and Marcos Rojo? How did it get to that point? 

Everton pursued Zouma until the penultimate day of the transfer window, and then suddenly scrambled. Desperation saw the club seek out players either untested in the Premier League or on the way down who offered little to the club’s long-term future. Everton supporters will hope this was just a blip, and not a weakness in Brands’ approach.

Mason Holgate has returned from loan but contributing to a side with top six aspirations is a big step up from a bit-part season on the right of the Championship’s 12th best defence. Yerry Mina has only made 21 appearances at club level in the last two years. Though he impressed at times last season, injury denied him the chance to settle. Another big step up is required: anything less than a solid campaign for Mina will see Everton in trouble.

Colombia did not concede a goal during in any of their four Copa America games this summer (losing to Chile on penalties in the quarter-finals where Mina was man of the match). That’s encouraging after just two games in five months at Everton, and hopefully a sign his injury issues are behind him.

This season could be the making of him at Goodison, and so too Holgate, but Silva should not have been put in this position. Defensive reinforcements ought to have been prioritised as soon as Idrissa Gueye’s departure to Paris Saint-Germain was telegraphed in January, and while his replacement Jean-Philippe Gbamin can also slot in at centre-half, that’s still some way short of an ideal solution.

Silva can at least be pleased with the boost to his attacking ranks the summer brought. In Moise Kean and Alex Iwobi, Everton have made two excellent signings to address the side’s limitations with carrying the ball, creating chances, and scoring goals. Silva now has options up top, and plenty of variety too. Perhaps Everton’s new look attack will represent the Toffees’ best form of defence this season.