Keane pens new Everton deal
In a slightly surprising move Everton centre-back Michael Keane has signed a new five-year contract keeping him at Goodison Park until 2025.
I say this is a little surprising, because Keane was one of those players whose place in the Everton squad was perhaps under threat and who might have been sold this summer. Now that possibility is obviously not happening.
Keane was hailed as one of the bright young English talents that had emerged a few years ago when he joined the Toffees in 2017 after several excellent campaigns at Burnley.
His signing was considered a coup for the Blues under then manager Ronald Koeman, who spent a total of around £30 million on the central defender.
Since he joined the Toffees, Keane’s form has been up and down and he has at times really struggled, especially when defending against genuine pace and good counter-attacking sides.
Keane’s strengths are his ability to tackle, block and clear the ball and also win it in the air, where he is very strong. In possession he is not the most comfortable-looking or accomplished passer, although not the worst either.
He is at his best when he is able to defend on a deeper line and when he plays alongside a partner with the pace to recover and provide the support he needs.
So when he was paired with Kurt Zouma during the second half of the 2018-19 season, this suited him very well and the two dovetailed to form a strong partnership.
Their partnership coincided with the teams best spell under Marco Silva and indeed probably the best sustained form Everton have showed for the past two seasons.
Of course, despite trying to seal a permanent deal for the French defender last summer, Zouma decided to stay at Chelsea and that promising pairing was broken up.
So this past campaign started with Keane playing alongside Yerry Mina. This didn’t really work as the two are very similar in their abilities and strengths. The Blues defending was brittle and inconsistent and the team was regularly conceding goals.
Eventually Silva decided to re-shape his defence, bizarrely choosing the Merseyside derby at Anfield against the runaway league leaders to do so.
It was a disaster as the Toffees experienced a humiliating 5-2 defeat to their bitterest rivals. Keane’s lack of pace was exposed again and again in the three-man defence as it was ripped apart by the Liverpool forwards.
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At this point the 27-year-old’s future looked very much in doubt, as indeed did that of many other Blues players!
That derby debacle proved to be the last straw and was Silva’s final match as Everton manager. He was eventually replaced by Carlo Ancelotti.
Keane was now often playing with Mason Holgate who had a breakout season finally showing evidence that he can become a good quality centre-back.
Holgate has the pace and ability on the ball, to play alongside a defender with the strength and power of Keane, or indeed Mina.
Then after the re-start of the season, Keane played a couple of games at the end of the campaign alongside January signing Jarrad Branthwaite. That pairing too seemed to work quite well, although it’s still very early days for the young teenage defender.
Well now he has earned himself another contract, which would indicate that he is very much in Carlo Ancelotti’s plans for next season. Let’s hope he can repay the club’s faith in him.