Many happy returns to Seamus Coleman on his 34 th birthday but while the Everton captain has now reached a venerable age for professional footballers, his recent return has shown that the Republic of Ireland international is still far from finished in the Premier League. Sunday night was a tough day at the office for Coleman and his Blues team-mates as they surrendered a 1-0 lead to lose 2-1 against Manchester United at Goodison Park but as always, the right-back put in a determined, all-action display.
Statistics compiled by Comparisonator show that despite being withdrawn 15 minutes from the end as his side chased an equaliser, Coleman’s three successful dribbles were the most of any Premier League player in his position over the weekend – along with Manchester United’s Diego Dalot and Bournemouth’s Ryan Fredericks – while he also topped the charts for offensive duels (six) and was second only to Manchester City’s Manuel Akanji with his score of 144.5 on the Defensive Index for his all-round play. Not bad going considering that the Everton skipper was only playing his second Premier League game of the season having been recalled to replace Nathan Patterson who was injured on international duty with Scotland last month.
Snapped up for a paltry £60,000 from Sligo Rovers – surely the greatest bargain buy in the Premier League era when it comes to pound-for-pound value – October 22 will represent the 13 th anniversary of Coleman making his Everton first team debut. While that baptism of fire proved to be a harsh lesson for the rookie and his colleagues – he filled in at left-back in a club record 5-0 European defeat at Benfica – after the rough diamond was polished up with a loan spell at Championship Blackpool in 2010, helping the Tangerines to promotion to the Premier League, he has been a stalwart for the Blues for more than a decade now.
