Everton have experienced an underwhelming season under Marco Silva’s tutelage so far despite putting in a few impressive displays during this campaign. The Toffees currently find themselves in the 9th place of the Premier League standings, a whopping 29 points behind their local rivals, Liverpool.
Most of the Merseyside club’s positives this season have been on the attacking end of the pitch with Richarlison, Lucas Digne and Gylfi Sigurdsson finding a lot of joy going forward in recent matches. However, Everton’s failure to keep clean sheets has seen them fall 14 points behind Arsenal, who are currently occupying the final spot in the English top-flight’s Top 6.
The partnership between Kurt Zouma and Michael Keane seems to be getting stronger with each game while Digne has been quite productive in the opposition half. However, the form of Seamus Coleman has been quite concerning in recent weeks. At 30, the Irish full-back has lost a yard of pace which makes it difficult for him to keep up with the movement of the opposition attackers.
There is no doubt that the Everton right-back’s form has taken a dip this season which is why Marco Silva needs to come up with a solution to his right-back woes soon. One player who can come into his side and put in a solid shift at right-back is Jonjoe Kenny.
The English defensive ace has been a sporadic feature under Silva this term. However, it is worth noting that he did a tremendous job when filling in for Coleman, who was out of action with an injury during the first half of this campaign.
The 21-year-old has featured in 12 matches for the Toffees this season and has one assist to his name across all competitions. Kenny has made an average of 2.1 tackles and 1.3 interceptions per game which is better than Coleman’s record of 1.8 tackles and 0.9 interceptions per match (Stats taken from Whoscored). Hence, the Liverpool born talent is performing better defensively and should be given a chance to shine at right-back in place of his senior colleague.
Moreover, Kenny is a hard man to beat on the flanks and could be developed into a world-class prospect in a few years if given enough opportunities to showcase his worth at Goodison Park this season.
