David Moyes admitted in the aftermath of today’s 2-0 defeat to Manchester City that Everton were noticeably weakened when James Tarkowski was forced off with a hamstring injury.

The team captain hobbled out of the action early in the second half having signalled immediately to the bench that he would need to come off and was replaced by fellow veteran Michael Keane.

Another key member of the side, Idrissa Gueye, was replaced later in the half after complaining of cramp and the defensive solidity that had characterised another gutsy Blues performance against one of the current top five evaporated.

City broke the deadlock in the 84th minute when Nico O’Reilly stole through a static home defence to slide home and Mateo Kovacic secured the points in stoppage time as the visitors exchanged passes in the hosts’ box before delivering the killer blow.

Much of the talk in the aftermath between supporters has been around the alarming drop-off in quality between Tarkowski and Keane, with the latter looking shaky and well off the pace after coming on for his first appearance in weeks.

He almost gifted Omar Marmoush the opener in the 82nd minute when he badly misjudged a high ball and Jordan Pickford had to make an important save and he was among a group of Everton defenders who failed to track the arrival of O’Reilly in the box for the first goal.

The former Burnley man is out of contract in the summer but was preferred to moving Jake O’Brien inside from right-back, a move that Moyes might have regretted given how the game panned out.

Asked in his post-match press conference if losing Tarkowski robbed Everton of some of their leadership at the back, Moyes agreed.

“I think Tarky coming off made [for] a big change in the game. I think it changed a lot of things and it shouldn’t have.

“I think you could feel it [once he had gone off]. I think Manchester City sensed it as well so it’s something that as a club we’ll need to consider because if we lose him… between him and Jarrad and the goalkeeper, they’re an incredibly strong part of the team and when one of them goes out, you can see that we can have a big effect.”

With Tarkowski likely to be out for the next match at least and possibly longer, Moyes will have to make changes to his first-choice centre-half pairing for the first time since he took over as as Blues’ boss in mid-January.

Asked if playing O’Brien in his natural position was an obvious decision, Moyes acknowledged that he has options when it comes to covering for the team skipper’s absence.

“It’s given me a chance to see what we would be like without one of them. So, if we had got an injury to Tarky or Jarrad, it’s given me a chance to see what we can do and how we’re going play, so I’ll have some options; I’ll have some choices and I’ll see what it looks like.

“I didn’t feel as comfortable. I thought we should’ve been. I thought we should definitely have dealt with the first goal better than we did.

“Jake plays every game in the main as a bit of a hybrid right-back and he’s doing a great job. We could’ve [moved him to centre-back] it today but we felt that it would be changing two positions instead of one at the time so we stuck with what we believed would be the right decision.”

Everton travel to Chelsea for a lunchtime kick-off next Saturday, the last of five consecutive fixtures against the current top five and one the Blues haven’t won for 31 years.

Reader Responses

Selected thoughts from readers
Certain off-topic comments may be removed to keep the discussion on track

1  Andy M
20/04/2025    09:16:06

Davey has explained why he put Keane in, but it failed badly.
I did wonder in real time if Picks might have cut out the cross before Lewis reached it, but on reflection he probably expected something from Keane.
The Kovatic goal killed the game, but in honesty none of the subs impacted the game at all.
The strength of the City bench was telling, and they are missing some great players, so a strong team overwhelmed us at the end.
Had Tarks header gone in off the post, had Jarrards header eluded Ortegas reaction save, we may have come home smiling, but it was not to be today.

2  Peter Fancy
22/04/2025    09:48:25

I was pleading with the radio for Moyes to move Jake inside and bring on Patterson… I suspect I was far from being the only one disappointed!

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