David Moyes has said Everton are “working” to try and sign a right-back, but insisted there are suitable options within his squad. The position has been a longstanding problem for the Blues, one that intensified further this summer with the exit of Seamus Coleman. Moyes regularly acknowledged the need to strengthen in that area during the second half of last season.
Bids made but none active
While he said the club had made bids for players, he confirmed none of those are active. He named a host of current players he believed could do the role. As well as Nathan Patterson, the only specialist in the squad but one repeatedly overlooked by Moyes, including this pre-season, the manager pointed to centre-back Jake O’Brien and midfielders James Garner and Merlin Rohl as alternative options.
O’Brien has spent most of Moyes’ second stint at the club in that slot, while Garner has played there for England Under-21s. Rohl has been tested there through pre-season.
Manager on the search
Asked in his pre-Crystal Palace press conference whether, like chief executive Angus Kinnear said in interviews this week, he was confident a right-back would be signed this summer, Moyes said: “I think there might be five or six managers before me who are trying to bring in a right back as well, so I’m not the only one. It sounds strange. It sounds as if you would find right backs 10-a-penny but that isn’t the case when you are looking.
“Look, we have identified quite a few right-backs we like, we have bid for quite a few we like, we are right in there - we are working to try and get one.”
In-house options
When asked whether he viewed right-back as a priority, Moyes added: “I think we have got other people who are doing quite well. Jake O’Brien has done well for us there, other people have filled in - we have still got Nathan Patterson, we’ve got Merlin Rohl, who has done well in pre-season playing there at different times, Jimmy Garner played really well at right-back for us, so it is not as if we haven’t got anybody to do the job.
“But it is certainly a position we are missing because from our squad compared to last year we are a player down just because of Seamus on his own, that takes the numbers down, so we are still a little bit down on numbers so we have certainly got room to bring in a new right back.”
Moyes pointed to other clubs, including Manchester City, having converted players from other positions to solve their own right-back problems. He also said league champions Arsenal had often used centre-backs at full-back.
Reasons bids failed
On the bids that have failed to progress, among which is understood to have been Alistair Johnston of Celtic, who is now injured, Moyes said: “Some have been injuries, some have been they have not accepted it, some have been the fees have been a bit too - we have bid lower than what their clubs want for them - they have been the main reasons.”
He continued: “I think it is not just a problem here, I think it is a little bit of shortness of real top quality levels which you would really want. Of course we can go and buy a right-back, but we are trying to buy one which we think is better than what we have got and we want that one to be somebody who we think could help us get better, improve.”
Garner, who is recovering from a hernia operation as well as fellow midfielders Christian Norgaard and Tim Iroegbunam, will not be fit to face Palace in Saturday's Premier League opener at Hill Dickinson Stadium (3pm kick-off).
