Evergreen Everton captain Seamus Coleman showed there’s still plenty of miles left on the clock for him as a top flight player as he came in from the cold to lead by example in what was only the Blues’ second Premier League away win in 13 months at Southampton.
Coleman – who celebrates his 34th birthday next week – hadn’t turned out in the competition for 136 days since an even more dramatic comeback victory against Crystal Palace that ensured the club avoided what would have been a first relegation in 71 years, but he typically took to the turf at St Mary’s like he hadn’t been away.
Following the aforementioned success against the Eagles in what was the Blues’ final home game of the 2021/22 season, manager Frank Lampard made an impassioned speech to his players in the dressing room in which he described Coleman as “the greatest man he’d ever met” and the club’s official statistician Gavin Buckland worked out that the Republic of Ireland international’s return in Hampshire ensured he became the first Everton player since John Heitinga in December 2012 to play in consecutive Premier League comeback wins.
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Having picked up a groin injury, for which he had surgery on over the summer, Coleman faced a race against time to be fit for the start of Everton’s current Premier League campaign, but in typical fashion he had got himself in good enough shape to turn out as an over-age player for the club’s Under-21s side against Blackburn Rovers the evening before the senior team hosted Chelsea at Goodison Park. However, with Nathan Patterson - a £12million signing from Rangers in January - seizing his big opportunity having only played 45 minutes of FA Cup action against non-League Boreham Wood last term, the skipper was left playing catch-up.
The pair took to the field alongside each other for Everton’s 1-0 Carabao Cup win at League One Fleetwood Town in August with Lampard deploying a 3-4-3 formation and Patterson the wing-back, while Coleman operated on the right-hand side of a back three as he’d done during last season’s run-in. But it wasn’t until the 20-year-old pretender to his throne picked up an ankle injury with Scotland that the senior pro got his chance to return in the Premier League in his traditional role as right-back with the team having now reverted to a flat back four.
Any fears that Coleman might need time to shake off the rust on the south coast though were quickly allayed as he produced the type of all-action display we’ve been accustomed to seeing over more than a decade of service from the only remaining player from the David Moyes era.
Data collected by Comparisonator shows just how busy Coleman was – at both ends of the pitch. Not only did he carry out 23 defensive actions (the Premier League average for a right-back is 15.73), 18 of these defensive actions were successful as opposed to the average of 12.16. Coleman also produced six attacking actions compared to the average of 4.79, and three of these were successful which is just above the average of 2.61, while his two successful dribbles were also ahead of the 1.41 average.
The man from Killybegs, County Donegal, has never been afraid of taking on opponents in one-on-one situations either and this was demonstrated by his higher duelling figures than what would be expected. He contested 10 defensive duels (the average is 7.74) and while his five defensive duels won were slightly below the 5.16 average, having contested a huge 11 defensive duels compared to the 4.89 average, he came out with three offensive duels won, just above the 2.86 average.
The numbers suggest that with another week of sharpness under his belt, he’ll be raring to go for his Goodison Park return against Manchester United on Sunday night as he bids to prove to the Evertonian home faithful that his famous “Sixty Grand” transfer fee is an even longer-term investment when it comes to this most-astute of bargain buys.
Comparisonator is a football data comparison tool from 271 professional leagues around the world which compares players and clubs by utilising over 100 different parameters. Click here for more details.
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