Might Sidibe come back to Everton

Transfer rumours are beginning to grow as the January window opens and one position Everton might be looking to strengthen this month is right-back.

There are several areas of the team that in an ideal world Everton boss Carlo Ancelotti will probably want to improve and increase his options.

Previously we’ve done some analysis on this and one position in the team identified as a definite long-term issue is right-back.

At the moment the Toffees have an aging Seamus Coleman and a young Jonjo Kenny as their main options, while Mason Holgate has of course filled in there recently.

It’s obvious that despite his rejuvenated form at the beginning of the season, Coleman is a player in decline and his age and injury problems mean the Blues certainly need a replacement soon.

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But Kenny doesn’t seem to be that player. He’s not good enough to play at the highest level in the Premier League and I would imagine he will move on at some point soon, maybe even in this window.

The club were linked with a number of full-backs in last summer so it’s very likely that the Toffees will be moving to solve this problem position soon, although I doubt it will be this month.

However, today SportWitness.co.uk claim that Everton could be contemplating reviving their previous deal for Monaco right-back and former World Cup winner Djibril Sidibe.

Such a move seems unlikely given that the club let the Frenchman go even though his year-long loan deal was reasonably successful.

I was actually a little surprised that Everton didn’t make Sidibe’s move a permanent one at the end of the last campaign. Although he certainly did have positional issues at times, he was a powerful and adventurous player, a strong tackler with pace and an excellent crosser of the ball.

Today full-backs tend to be much more suited to a attacking wing-back/ winger type role where they can provide the attacking width and outlet on the flanks that old-fashioned wingers used to, like for example Trent Alexander-Arnold does for Liverpool.

I think Sidibe is well suited to playing in that position and I thought that he and his countryman Lucas Digne would have made a really strong pair of attacking full-backs for the Blues this season, provided there was adequate defensive cover behind them.

Having said all that I don’t think that adding another right-back is a priority in this transfer window and can actually wait until the summer one.

Although Coleman is not a long-term solution, he can still do a job for the rest of this season and Holgate too is perfectly capable of filling in as well.