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.
