Silva doesn’t seem to rate Kean for Everton
Although Everton produced a fine performance to beat an admittedly pathetic West Ham United last Saturday, one thing that was a little frustrating, was the absence of Moise Kean from the starting eleven.
So does this mean that Marco Silva has no faith in the young Italian forward who was signed this summer to be a new goal scoring hope for Everton.
Kean has had very limited time on the pitch since he joined the Blues in a £25 million deal from Juventus in August. This has inevitably made it more difficult for him to adapt and adjust to life in the Premier League.
It was always going to difficult for him to hit the ground running given his age and lack of experience. But he has still to find the back of the net in any competition since he signed, and this is becoming a little worrying.
While as I say, I wouldn’t have expected him to get thrown into the fray straight away, I do think he has had too little playing time so far.
I felt that Saturday’s game was a great opportunity for him a start and give the 19-year-old the confidence to showcase his talent.
After all in a sense Silva had nothing to lose, so to speak, at least as far as the supporters are concerned.
If the Toffees had been beaten it would have simply confirmed the view of many Evertonians that his time is up. Even the victory he actually got hasn’t really ended that conversation about his future.
So why not give a chance to a young forward presumably desperate to play and make an impact for his new team? Silva did actually seem to roll the dice with his section decisions as the team he picked was certainly a significant departure from his past sides.
And as it was Silva sprung a surprise and selected Theo Walcott to play in a re-shuffled frontline. And to be fair it worked very well as Walcott, like every other Everton player, had a good game and contributed to the win.
However when Kean did come on very late in the game he immediately looked sharp and got stuck in. Given that Everton had continued to miss so many chances in this match, I wonder whether he might have made more of a difference if he had been on the pitch earlier.
All this though makes me think that perhaps Silva doesn’t rate him and that could create a significant problem for the player. Particularly given that he put Richarlison back in the central forward position.
I don’t know if the manager had other targets in his sights before Kean signed. It’s true the Blues were linked with a lot of forwards this summer and it might be that Silva really wanted one of those players instead.
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Regardless of that, it makes no sense in my view for Silva to continue to leave him on the bench and give him barely a few minutes of game time.
We’re never going to know whether he has the ability to become a goal scorer at this level if he isn’t getting game time. After all it’s not as if the Toffees have a surfeit of forwards regularly finding the back of the net!
And for a manager under the kind of pressure he’s experiencing I’m not sure he can afford to leave a player out who might help to solve this chronic problem that Everton have been struggling with for far too long.