Everton vs. Manchester United: Who makes it to the combined XI?
Yerry Mina edges Lindelof.
Centre-Back: Yerry Mina vs Victor Lindelof
Usually, I would’ve included Mason Holgate, but he’s injured, so I included Yerry Mina instead.
Now, this is one that I really struggled with, and I wish I could say it’s for positive reasons but unfortunately, I just can’t. Both of these centre-backs have massively underperformed this year. To put it in context, Mina is currently averaging a 6.69 rating and Lindelof is averaging 6.61 (in the Premier League) which is not good to put it nicely.
The issue with these two players is that both of them are extremely talented and they’ve both shown it in glimpses. I feel like Lindelof had a very underrated season last year and Mina can sometimes look like a monster in the Everton backline.
The one glaring issue with both of these players is consistency, you may get a run of good games but you know a glaring mistake is bound to happen defensively. I feel like they both struggle with decision making and sometimes just make a rash decision, Mina especially tries to rely on his athleticism a lot to win tackles and it can sometimes get Everton into some serious issues.
However, I feel like Mina has done a little bit more this season for me to justify putting him into this team over Lindelof, but both need to improve if they want to continue to be starters for their clubs.
Centre-back: Yerry Mina
Manager raves about Everton target, compares him to Trent Alexander-Arnold. light. Hot
Left-Back: Lucas Digne vs Luke Shaw
I put Shaw in instead of new signing Alex Telles due to the Brazilians lack of an appearance in the Premier League compared to Shaw’s 6 this season.
To be brutally honest, this was probably the easiest decision of the entire eleven, that’s no disrespect to Luke Shaw who’s a brilliant left-back on his day, but there’s the issue, Shaw seems to only perform when there’s pressure on him.
An example being his surge in form when Brandon Williams started to place the pressure on him for the starting role, but Digne, in my opinion, is one of the best left-backs in world football. He has proven time and time again that he is an amazing player, and as I mentioned in my previous piece, someday Barcelona will miss when they lose Jordi Alba.
Digne is a player that you could use as a great example of what a modern-day full-back should look like. He’s not the quickest but has a quick enough recovery speed to get back and cause trouble for wingers, he’s one of the best crossers of the ball in the Premier League, his passing, in general, is severely underrated and his defensive IQ isn’t spoken about as much as it should be.
I think he walks into a lot of the big teams in Europe, nevermind just the Premier League. I also think he also walks into this eleven.