Everton must already Regret sale of £27m ‘monster’ who Richarlison once Dubbed the ‘best’ – Opinion
The litany of regrets that Everton has made has gotten absurdly long in recent years.
The last several seasons have been extremely difficult for the supporters of this legendary club due to a variety of issues, including poor managerial decisions, the acquisition of players that are unfit to wear the uniform, and general financial faux pas.
Even if a few heroes did emerge from the muck to save the Toffees, considerably more villains were produced as failures who were held accountable for putting the team in such danger.
However, someone who trod that fine line was Yerry Mina, who despite being a lucrative acquisition who spent the bulk of his time in Merseyside on the treatment table, remained a well-liked figure.
Signed under Marco Silva for just over £27m, the towering centre-back had just enjoyed a fine World Cup campaign with Colombia. So, trading Barcelona for Goodison Park marked a strange backwards step in a career showing promise.
However, it quickly became clear why the Catalan giants were so keen to offload him, with those aforementioned ailments starting early and persisting relentlessly.
How good was Yerry Mina for Everton?
Given that Mina had an injury when he signed and was unable to play in the first few games, Everton should have understood what would happen with him from the beginning.
He would sustain about 10 more ailments of differing severity during his tenure with the team.
The quality he shown when fit just added to the frustration of his frequent absence at crucial times.
when all, according to a study published by The Athletic, their victory percentage increased from just 27 to 56.1 during the 2020–21 campaign when the 29-year-old took the field.
Richarlison, another cult hero at the club, would even suggest he was the ‘best defender’ on Instagram back in 2021, echoing Michael Ball’s suggestion that he was a ‘monster’.
Although his £120k-per-week wage was exorbitant for someone so unreliable, allowing his free exit in the summer just gone seemed somewhat unwise even with Jarrad Branthwaite’s emergence.
Maybe they should have given him a shorter contract at a lower pay to cover times like this.
Everton has a chance to win four straight Premier League games this weekend, something they haven’t done in a long time. But they are marred by Branthwaite’s suspension and Michael Keane’s possible injury.
Even though he is the best stand-in, Ben Godfrey hasn’t made a single league start this year.
Sean Dyche must be thinking, at times like these, that he should have done more to restrain Mina and provide the depth required to lessen these kinds of situations.
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