Conor Coady has become one of the new type of Everton players that Kevin Thelwell vowed to bring in when appointed as director of football – the kind that hate taking a day off. When giving his first interview back in March after replacing Marcel Brands, Thelwell explained how he wanted recruitment at Goodison Park to change, declaring: “Hopefully we build a team that’s a bit more consistent, a bit more stable and is also very clear about what their roles and responsibilities are on the pitch.”
Such consistency and stability comes from durability. Until he suddenly fell out of favour at Wolverhampton Wanderers this summer, Coady had played in 196 out of 198 league matches for them over the previous five seasons. As the 29-year-old proclaimed in his first interview as an Everton player: “I had to miss one with Covid and I was absolutely raging at one point. It was one of the worst days of my life because I missed a game of footy, it was horrendous!”
For long-suffering Evertonians, fed up with having to see their players suffering with long spells on the sidelines, such words will surely sound like a breath of fresh air. Coady joins fellow centre-back James Tarkowski through the entrance door at Finch Farm this summer, a player who had made over 30 Premier League appearances for the past five years and 35 plus for the last four.
Such numbers are in sharp contrast to Yerry Mina, a man who was widely-considered to be the Blues’ best option in the position last season but someone who has completed 90 minutes just 61 times out of 153 Premier League matches since starting for the club (just eight last term), that’s less than 40% of total games. Only once in his Everton career has the Colombian completed 10 consecutive fixtures in the competition and he now faces another prolonged period out of the side after suffering ankle ligament damage in the opening game of the new season against Chelsea on Saturday.
With Coady looking to go straight into Frank Lampard’s side at Aston Villa this Saturday, here’s a look back at the previous Blues marathon men he’ll be looking to emulate courtesy of the excellent statistical resources provided by Steve Johnson at evertonresults.com
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Most consecutive appearances
Neville Southall, who played more games for Everton than anyone else (751), holds both first and third place for the most consecutive appearances with two separate sequences. Between a 2-1 win at home to Middlesbrough on Boxing Day 1988 – a fortnight after he penned a bumper seven-and-a-half year contract – and a 2-0 success at Crystal Palace on January 9 1993, he kept goal for the Blues in 215 straight matches.
The run began after Mike Stowell, came in for Southall who had a minor back injury, for the 2-0 success against Millwall in the Simod (Full Members) Cup third round on December 20 1988, watched by just 3,703 – Goodison’s lowest pre-Covid attendance of the last 100 years – and ended when Jason Kearton deputised for him in the 2-1 home defeat to Wimbledon in an FA Cup third round replay on January 12 1993 because the Welsh international was suspended for being sent off in a 4-2 loss at Queens Park Rangers a fortnight earlier when he accidently caught the ball outside of his area.
Indeed, the Millwall omission was the only game that Southall missed among 281 Everton matches going back to October 24 1987 and using that same date as a starting point, he missed just six games out of 476. Second on most consecutive appearances is Cyril Lello, who played 155 games on the trot between the 5-0 win at Bury on December 13 1952 and the 2-1 loss at home to Sunderland on March 10 1956 while as highlighted earlier, it’s Southall again in third with 136 straight outings from the 1-0 success at Notts County on October 1 1983 and a 1-0 defeat at Norwich City in the Screen Sports Super Cup quarter-finals on October 23 1985.
When it comes to just league matches, Southall again leads the way on 212 between October 24 1987 and February 10 1993, followed by fellow custodian Tim Howard (210) from September 30 2007-February 23 2013 with Lello’s aforementioned run back in third as he took in 141 league games.
Most games in a season
Only once have any Everton players made more than 60 appearances in a single season and that came in the club’s most-successful campaign of 1984/85. Southall again comes out on top with an ever-present 63 games followed by captain Kevin Ratcliffe and Trevor Steven who both turned out 61 times that term.
Ever presents
During the Premier League era, eight Everton players have been ever presents in all competitions over the course of a single season. Southall was the first to do it with 49 games in 1995/96 and was followed by Lee Carsley & Joleon Lescott (42 each in 2006/07); Lescott (54 in 2007/08); Tim Howard (48 in 2008/09); Leighton Baines & Sylvain Distin (44 each in 2010/11); Jordan Pickford (43 in 2019/20).
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