“It’s a very good comparison,” James Garner says, and he is not kidding. It came from Thomas Tuchel in March after the England manager had watched the Everton midfielder impress on his international debut against Uruguay. He was up against Federico Valverde and Tuchel went big with his praise. Garner was a “mini Valverde”, he said after the 1-1 draw at Wembley.
It was surely too much, despite the prefix that Tuchel attached, yet it was possible to see where he was coming from. Like Valverde, Garner wants to operate in central midfield but he can play at right-back or on the wing. And like Valverde, who they called El Pajarito – or the Little Bird – when he was a kid, Garner can sometimes fly a bit under the radar.
