Jarrad Branthwaite has been speaking about his ambitions for the upcoming season and his desire to secure a place in the Everton team next season.
Branthwaite has of course just come off an excellent campaign on loan at Dutch giants PSV Eindhoven where he grew in confidence and performance, so much so that the Eridivisie side wanted to turn his loan into a permanent deal.
However, he returned to Everton after last season finished and despite constant rumours of a possible move away, he is still at Goodison Park.
Assuming Branthwaite doesn’t leave the club this summer (and I sincerly hope he will not) he will surely have a considerable role to play in shoring up what was a leaky defence last season.
This is particularly true because the Blues have let both senior centre-backs from last season, Conor Coady and Yerry Mina leave, and might still sell Mason Holgate too.
If Holgate were to move on as well, that would only leave James Tarkowski, Micheal Keane and Ben Godfrey as experienced Premier League players.
And, both Keane and Godfrey have major question marks against them, leaving Toffees supporters in trepidation of what might go wrong whenever they line up in defence.
With time running out and money very tight, it seems increasingly unlikely Sean Dyche will be able to bring in another centre-half as well as strengthening up front – despite some rumours he still might – unless the club engineers a last-minute loan deal or something similar.
So, that should give Branthwaite a good chance of getting serious consideration for a place in the first-team. And, the 21-year-old is ready to show that he can do just that.
In this article it is claimed that Dyche is a big fan of the tall Englishman signed form Carlise three and a half years ago.
So am I and I would really like to see the manager put some faith in him and give him a chance in the side, especially given the issues with his other centre-backs.
Branthwaite played in the 1-0 win at Stoke and produced an assured and competent performance, including a superb last-ditch tackle, that indicates he has matured and developed well since his loan move to Holland.
Given all that, I would hope Dyche will give serious thought to Branthwaite being in his starting line-up when Everton open the new campaign against Fulham on the 12th August.