Everton centre-back Yerry Mina’s latest injury ‘could be season-ending’, Ben Dinnery has told Football Insider.
The lowdown
The Colombian sustained a quad injury in the first half of the Toffees’ Premier League defeat against Newcastle United earlier this month.
According to Frank Lampard, he faces ‘between eight and 10 weeks’ on the sidelines. If that timeline proves accurate, the 27-year-old would return to training between the middle and end of April.
Everton are also without another centre-back in the form of Ben Godfrey, who is expected to be missing for at least another three weeks.
The latest
Injury expert Dinnery has said that Mina is a key figure at Everton, which makes his ‘ongoing muscular problems’ all the more frustrating, and he thinks the Toffees may ultimately decide that it isn’t worth risking the defender before the end of the campaign.
Dinnery told Football Insider: “He is pivotal to that Everton team. If you look at their win ratios when he is and isn’t in that team, it’s night and day.
“Trying to keep him fit has been the difficult thing in recent seasons. There are a lot of ongoing muscular problems that have hampered him. That 10-week turnaround, it could even be May if we get to a worst-case scenario.
“Then you start to question if it is even worth bringing him back for the end of the season. Possibly, that could be season-ending. There are no guarantees.”
The verdict
Dinnery has a point about the win ratio, as well as the defender’s chequered injury record.
Mina has started eight Premier League games this season, helping Everton to collect 11 points (a rate of 1.375 per game). Strikingly, they have amassed the same number of points from the 16 games that he hasn’t started (0.69 ppg).
It’s tempting to wonder how much better the Toffees’ situation would be if he had been fit for the entire campaign, but it wouldn’t have been wise for Everton to count on that given the Colombian’s history.
Since he made his Everton debut in October 2018, the £120,000-per-week defender has had to deal with 10 separate injuries, ruling him out of 35 matches (and counting), so maybe it is best for Lampard to give Mina every bit of time he needs to get back up to full fitness instead of rushing him back prematurely.
In other news, Everton have launched a scouting mission after strong links with this midfielder