O’Brien wrinkle would complicate the last week of the summer window

We would be absolutely crazy to sell Jake, leaving us with just keane as cover. Even more bizarre when you take Branthwaites injury record into account. He should not be punished for stating he wants to play in his natural position, if true, how short sighted and petty of Moyes. Great defender and very useful at set pieces. Please let cool heads and sanity prevail...

Can't say I blame him if he wants to leave. An aging and mistake prone Tarks, an aging and mistake prone Keane and an excellent but injury prone Jarrad preferred in front of him. He's done nothing wrong yet Tarks and Keane, who were woeful for chunks of last season, last season as a partnership, kept getting picked ahead of him in his preferred position.

Getting games is okay. However, when you're getting played out of position, in a role you're uncomfortable in, and where you get made to look bad in as it's not your natural position, you're not going to be happy.

If the club is encouraging offers, then either he's had words with Moyes or else the money is required. I think perhaps N'Diaye not having gone (yet) has put a spanner in the transfer plans from a money perspective.

It would be a shame in my mind if he left. He's a player that's settled into the squad and one who is used to training and occasionally playing with Jarrad. Like many fans, I had hopes of a partnership developing as the season went on. But, if a player doesn't want to be at the club, it can potentially become toxic. Better for everyone if the issue is resolved through a quick sale and replacement.

I think Kieran got it right. Moyes imo was making do with the defence he had.Though he said a right back was not needed last September, not getting one has put alot of pressure on the defensive options.It looks like status quo this season, so O Brien is bound to be questioning his position.It could be that Everton need to sell, which when you look at the figures is glaring under the SCR rules, since that is the best way to generate funds.

Nidaye on the money asked does not seem to be generating the required interest.It would be annoying to be a second place Centre Back and watch the mistakes of Keane and Tarks and not being the replacement for a injured Branthwaite.

I have always thought that Moyes was comfortable on taking pressure on his defence,in the lower expectations and cost tight environment he was brought into to Manage.But if O Brien leaves this could backfire on him.

It would be surprising if any of this is actually true.

"The Republic of Ireland international, 25, spent much of last season as a makeshift right-back but is keen to be a regular starter in his preferred central defensive role, something Everton are unable to guarantee at this stage, and would be open to a move that provides this. The expectation from sources briefed on the situation, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, is that the Merseyside club will now be open to offers for his services."

I said on another thread that this is disgraceful, he and Branthwaite are (should be now) the pairing we should have going forward. Both Tarkowski and Keane are past their sell by date.
Instead we are contemplating selling two of our better players with nothing as yet coming the other way. Less than a week to go Angus?

This is awful news. It only took Tarks 3 minutes on Saturday to make his first blunder of the season, and if we want to be more expansive then you can expect many more.

Tarks has been good signing for us, but he's a bottom half of the league CB. Jake and Jarrod should be our future.

I sincerely hope it all gets sorted and he stays.

Boot Moyes out the door before this story goes any further. What ridiculous mismanagement of one of our best assets.

O’Brien should quite clearly be playing ahead of Tarkowski who almost gifted Palace the lead in the first couple of minutes and has been down on form for a long time. O’Brien is younger, taller, stronger, so much faster and an all round better player than Tarky.

Can’t even contemplate this one particularly with the fragility of Branthwaite.

I’d be sick if he left.

Selling O'Brien but offering Keane a new contract encapsulates all of the frustrations of being an Evertonian.

What is the point in supporting a club like ours, anymore? Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa in recent seasons have achieved what we have spent 30 years aiming for and dreaming of and now they are in the doldrums because of the need to balance the books and let their best players go. Ollie Watkins wins a European trophy and wants to go to Saudi Arabia? The game has gone. The ladder has been pulled up. Look where Leicester City are now. Meanwhile, the Sky 6 chase and get every target they want. I listened to Carragher and Neville last night and their stick is now beyond nauseating. Remember Neville's reaction when he said those 6 clubs should have been kicked out of the Premier League for trying to engineer a breakaway? Yet again, those teams comprise his predicted top 6. Teams like us, Leeds, Newcastle, Villa, Fulham, Forest, Sunderland are just there to make up the numbers.

We could sign a 30 goal a season striker, a right back, a centre back and finish 6th or 7th and end up like Aston Villa or Newcastle.

A new stadium was supposed to offer us hope and a new era but we won't be allowed to get back to the where we want to be and that's without considering the money we owe Burnley. It is so dispiriting. O'Brien wanting to leave just sums it up for me.

Much ado about nothing.

He’s perfectly fine and won’t be going anywhere.

It's entirely possible that:

O'Brien's upset at being ignored by Dyche has been revisited and compounded by Moyes sidelining him and making Tarky captain.

O'Brien has been made some good, better offers.

That Moyes doesn't rate him as a CB. I know a few shrewdies with a similar view.

That we have cheaper, better alternatives lined up.

When the dominoes start dropping in the next few days, things will get very, very interesting!

It would be sad news if O'Brien were to leave. He was bought to be a corner stone of our defence, and when played in his correct position he has looked to be very good. I am not sure now why he is not one of the first names on the team sheet, with Tarky and Keane as our back ups. By all accounts Coleman was a fine none playing captain.

However, if a change is to be considered why not bring in a true left sided centre back, and allow Branthwaite to play on his natural right hand side. This just might ease some of his injury problems, as twisting and turning would be easier and potentially less stressful.

If this is true, we can kiss this season goodbye as we will finish no higher than 13th and probably in the relegation positions. I hope it's not true but it has the smell of Moyes and his stubborness.

David #11

Not sure what you’re getting at here. Branthwaite is a left footed CB.

Don’t see what all the hysteria is about. He’s not top drawer, there are other central defenders out there, if he wants to go and get regular minutes, fine. It’s just another transfer. The future of Everton Football Club doesn’t depend on Jake O’Brien.

Paul, 10, it may be that Moyes doesn't rate O'Brien as a centre back. But isn't it part of his job to develop/improve him?

Given that the club/owners have a strategy of buying young players and developing them, I do increasingly wonder if Moyes is the right man to be Everton manager.

We have moved away from the days when a manager pretty much decided himself which players to buy and sell.

When you have a director of football, or a transfer committee, surely it is best to have a manager (no matter how good he may be in various ways) whose thinking closely aligns with the DoF, or transfer committee.

Otherwise, you end up with disagreements, missed opportunities in the transfer market, various fall-outs and inefficient use of money.

I'm still expecting Ndiaye to get sold, so we could be looking at raising upto £150m over the next few days, and spending, what, £200m?
interesting times.

Branthwaite and O’Brien should have been the first choice CH partnership last season, let alone this season.

O’Brien is tall, strong and aggressive and the right age to improve further….to sell him would be plain stupid.

Phil 14, apparently Branthwaite is naturally right footed, although he can clearly use his left foot. I cannot remember who but someone on these pages corrected me sometime ago. Since then I have watched him carefully in games and I do think he looks stronger on his right hand side.

"An aging and mistake prone Tarks, an aging and mistake prone Keane and an excellent but injury prone Jarrad preferred in front of him. He's done nothing wrong yet Tarks and Keane, who were woeful for chunks of last season, last season as a partnership, kept getting picked ahead of him in his preferred position."

The question does come to mind, "Just how shit a CB is this kid, if he can't pass them in the pecking order?"

"Don’t see what all the hysteria is about. He’s not top drawer, there are other central defenders out there, if he wants to go and get regular minutes, fine."

Yes, his main "ability" as a CB is that his name isn't Keane or Tarkowski. We need better CBs than them. I'm for that. But it doesn't mean O'Brien is better.

He's a 25-year old on his 6th team. If he was better than Keane or Tarkowski, at CB, he'd be picked ahead of them.

Hi Folks,

I personally cannot see this being true - though Rohl being rolled out at right back (yes, I know what I just did there) does suggest that a change of heart - either from the player or the manager about playing at right back - that it is not beyond comprehension.

From what I have read and heard - in 7 of the last games that O'Brien has played centre back - there have been 5 wins and 2 draws - that speaks for itself really - and I would have him partnering Branthwaite every day of the week as I think both are at that point that they do not need mentoring from an older player.

Just my humble opinion of course!

If there is legs in this story - well I find it utterly self-defeating unless they have a better option as a replacement - or an equal one at a lesser price and thus, gain a tidy profit from the sale.

It is probably all paper talk - no stories - nothing to sell.

I'd still play Patterson and right back as the side - regardless of what you think of him as a player, looks a lot more balanced with him in it - rather than a shoehorned alternative.

Just an aside - I am a toffeeweb regular - but becoming less so - it is nice to read the comments and not get bombarded with people having a go at each other personally over football - it feels like a kindergarten convention on the site these days!

Keep up the good work Lyndon.

This lad splits opinion more than I’d expect because I think he is easily good enough to replace both Keane and Tarkowski, and the reason he’s not yet got a look in is because the manager would prefer to play him as right-back and keep Tarkowski playing with Jarrad.

Anyone who say’s he’s easily replaced, please name your chosen targets.

Although I maintain this seems unlikely (as per today's link with AC Milan's Rafael Leao), I'll join in with a few thoughts.

All summer long we've been linked with Harwood-Bellis of Saints. It seems likely he'll move rather than stay in the Championship for another season. In the circumstances he'd probably cost less than any fee for O'Brien - and may well be a better player.

It is not too far fetched to say that, as a pairing (esp alongside Pickford) Branthwaite and Harwood-Bellis could both be in contention for England's Euros squad in a couple of years. Who knows, with Norton-Cuffy at RB too...

Maybe that deal is close to done and O'Brien is pissed off that it leaves him as third choice (if that) and / or as a stand-in RB again (deputy to whoever we buy in the next week or two).

If that's how it plays out (or something along those lines) then it's probably no big deal. O'Brien always looked decent but he's not in the same class as Branthwaite by any stretch. If he goes, he goes and we move on, presumably with better reinforcements.

ps. Si # 23, they're not my targets as such - but the club has been strongly linked to CBs all summer. Especially:

Diao (Midtyland)
Cramma (Millwall)
Fernandez (Rangers)
Boyomo (Osasuna)
Nyokassi (OH Leuven)
H.bellis (Saints)
Van den Berg (Cologne)

A couple of others have been very heavily linked to other Premier League clubs:

Nwaiwu (Trabzonspor)
Matsima (Augsburg)

Whether these are better players than O'Brien is hard to say. I am not sure I've seen enough of him at CB to decide just how good he is (or isn't). But there's certainly some very good players amongst the names above.

Si - if we could get Leopold Querfeld from Union Berlin for £20-£25 million, and offload O’Brien for £30, I’d take that. Nice bit of business that, Querfeld is an upgrade.

However, it may well be that we’re wasting our time here - El Bobble is saying JOB is happy to stay with us. Paddy Boyland could also be right in that Everton will listen to offers, but they’d have to be silly ones for us to pull the trigger. I really can’t see him going in the next week.

From the little we have seen of Jake at CB for Everton and Ireland he has been no worse than Keane or Tarks who are undoubtedly in the last years of their Premier league stay.

Jake is not only a huge physical presence he is useful in the increasing need to defend and attack at set pieces.

The results when partnering Jarrad speak for themselves and with an extended run alongside Jarrad will only see him get better.

I respect Roberts views and knowledge of players but better the devil you know still ranks first with me.

I’ve posted on a number of threads since the end of last season that upgrading our back 4 has got to be a priority.

Failure to do so is going to leave us in deep trouble.
Selling O’Brien is not going to improve the situation it will worsen it.
I am not convinced of his ability as a centre back but we certainly need him as cover.

Harewood-Bellis,Norton-Cuffy would in my opinion be an improvement,achievable but will it happen?I doubt it!

Aznou is the enigma,will his attacking flair outweigh his defensive immaturity?The jury’s out on this one but I’d bet playing him would cost us more goals than he saves.

Either way it’s a dilemma that needs solving.

If the club fails to improve the back four then we will lose games we should have at least drawn,so forget cup runs and a top half finish

As always with Everton in the transfer window the clock is ticking.Tick.tock,tick tock.!

I suspect a lot of the outrage from a fair number of evertonians has to do with the lack of transfer activity as the window deadline approaches.

Still no right back on the horizon and no sign of a centre forward points to little money to spend or what we have will be used at the last minute.

I would rather we kept O’Brien and played him instead of Tarkowski but Moyes likes his favourites so if he stays he may have to wait on the bench for a while.

I bristled at the possible sale of O'Brien not because I think he is an outstanding player, which he isn't, but because in the overall squad there are probably at least half a dozen who are worse than him but have no prospect of pastures new. Upgrades required all over the park ahead of selling him. Has he got an inflated opinion of himself? Probably not in fairness, he represents his country currently which is more than any of his fellow defenders, he has been tasked with playing as a full back, a role he struggles with and he knows it's a position he struggles at and it makes him look bad. Imagine if we put Tarkowski there, that would look even worse!
He has a right to feel frustrated as he can't be enjoying his football giving sub par performances in a position he is not suited for. But if he does go it will be a direct result of the club but more importantly of Moyes in hammering a square peg into a round hole and blaming him for not excelling there.
If O'Brien is 3rd or 4th choice for his position and sees the club attempting to sign another then I would feel exactly the same way, time to go. I don't blame him, but it also points the finger at a club, a manager who is obviously not singing from the same hymn sheet as his CEO and a set of owners who are and never had set foot in the church!
Sitting far back allows you to see a bigger perspective but also exposes the flaws masquerading as truth in the CEOs words. It's looking increasingly likely that the transfer window will meekly shut without landing the players we need, the players we hoped for or even something special or out of the blue. More likely it could end with losing a couple of better ones without replacement. I guess that's my fear, or even it's my expectation.

Robert (25), that is quite a list but none have played a load of EPL games already have they? I know some will make the transition but there are plenty who don’t no matter how good they looked in their original leagues.

Strongly linked? Well I know Harwood-Bellis was a name bandied about early doors but I obviously don’t read the ITKs if the rest have been strongly linked.

I think it would be incredibly harsh to write-off O’Brien based on what must be something like 90 percent of his games out of position or partnering one of the veterans.

@Christine (30) - fully agree with your comments here. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if others share O'Brien's frustration because of Moyes' decisions to play his preferred square pegs in round holes... I feel sorry for those players to be honest as much as I do for us fans