Rafa Benitez’s sacking and Duncan Ferguson’s appointment as caretaker manager have understandably dominated the build-up to Everton’s game with Aston Villa on Saturday.
But the fixture is also a tale of three left-backs.
Leighton Baines – along with John Ebbrell – is of course stepping up from his role with the Blues youngsters to assist Ferguson.
And his presence in the home dugout will at least provide the opportunity for a modicum of consolation for him, in terms of the Goodison Park crowd being able to salute his efforts, given that he retired from playing in 2020 at a time when English top-flight matches were being played behind closed doors due to coronavirus restrictions.
As Everton’s greatest left-back of modern times, and surely the best in his position at the club since England’s 1966 World Cup winner Ray Wilson, Baines is a 21 st century icon for the Blues.
For Evertonians, the Kirkby-born player, signed from Wigan Athletic in 2007, was one of their own. He delivered 13 years of sterling service and was a loyal servant of the club who stayed rather than push through a move to join former manager David Moyes at Manchester United when the Scot defected to Old Trafford in 2013. It was a time when Baines was at the peak of his powers.
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As a player, the 37-year-old was up and down that left flank for Everton – often dovetailing expertly with Steven Pienaar – but now he’s Ferguson’s right-hand man, providing a relaxed and erudite figure to the caretaker manager’s blood and thunder.
Such was Baines’ standing at Goodison, the Blues had to fork out £18million on a player from Barcelona in the shape of Lucas Digne who arrived as his long-term successor in 2018.
At first the France international looked like a sound replacement and, like his predecessor, he also fulfilled the modern full-back’s brief of also being a potent weapon in the opponents’ half of the pitch.
Numbers of four goals and four assists in 2018/19 plus seven assists in both 2019/20 and 2020/21 – and boy does Digne love a stat – are testament to that.
That supply line dried up this term though and the player fell out with manager Rafa Benitez over the Spaniard’s tactics that he did not believe were fully utilising his strengths.
Perhaps that was the case but in truth Digne’s malaise had begun under Carlo Ancelotti with some even predating it to the time he signed a lucrative new long-term deal at Everton in February last year.
All that is irrelevant now though because he and Benitez have both departed the club.
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But while it might be a while until the former Liverpool boss is back at Goodison Park, for Digne the Premier League fixture computer has thrown up a swift return.
Despite Benitez’s claims that the 28-year-old no longer wanted to play for the Blues, he’s likely to be afforded a charitable welcome by large sections of the home crowd before kick-off – he received warm applause when warming up as an unused substitute against Brighton & Hove Albion on January 2 – but once the action starts he’s the enemy and as much of an opponent as visiting boss Steven Gerrard.
Evertonians wouldn’t have it any other way. Even caretaker boss Ferguson himself was roundly booed during Newcastle United’s 2-0 win at Goodison in 2000 when he returned in black and white stripes.
He even picked up a yellow card with the Independent’s Phil Shaw reporting: “Ferguson had already got away with a potentially dangerous swing of the forearm against his former Rangers team-mate, Richard Gough, when the referee (Graham Barber) booked him for a feisty challenge on David Weir.”
So then we turn to the man who has taken Digne’s place, Vitalii Mykolenko, making his home debut after what’s been something of a baptism of fire for him already in English football.
First there was the trip to Hull City in the FA Cup third round where Everton required extra-time to edge past the Championship strugglers 3-2, and then there was last weekend’s 2-1 defeat at Norwich City, where the 22-year-old survived making a kamikaze back pass that was intercepted by Adam Idah before former Canary Ben Godfrey was able to hack the ball to safety.
Any thoughts Mykolenko might have had about being eased in gently will have already evaporated but when you’re thrown in at the deep end you have to sink or swim.
With 21 caps already for his country and a fee understood to be worth £17million plus add-ons paid for his service, big things are expected of the Dynamo Kyiv star and he’ll be encouraged in having the majority of the stadium behind him on this occasion as he makes his home bow.
As much as Baines and Digne were both quality left-backs for Everton, fans will be hoping that Mykolenko follows more in the footsteps of the man who is now his assistant manager than the player who was ever so briefly his team-mate earlier this month.
