“60 grand, 60 grand, Séamus Coleman..."
When Willie McStay reached out to his former team-mate David Moyes to recommend a full-back playing at Sligo Rovers, he may not have realised just how significant that piece of advice would prove to be.
Seamus Coleman cost the Merseyside club £60,00o. He would go on to represent the club 289 times, all the while overcoming a fractured tibia and fibula and brief dip in form. Today he was handed his just reward with confirmation that the Irish international is the new club captain after Phil Jagielka left.
🔵 | Seamus Coleman: confirmed as our new Club captain. 👏
— Everton (@Everton) August 10, 2019
Coleman regularly stepped into the captaincy role as Jagielka's deputy last season but had to fight for his own starting spot on occasion with Jonjoe Kenny selected ahead of him. Coleman responded with some superb showings against Liverpool, Chelsea and West Ham. He was nominated for player of the month is April, Kenny was loaned out to Schalke.
You put so much work into it, put everything into it," he told Balls.ie earlier this summer. "Every single day that I was out... on days off I was going in, just putting my whole life into recovering. You put so much into it that you come back with a bang."
But then I just think something comes over you, it just drains you again or something and I definitely felt that. A period where towards the end of last season the sharpness wasn’t there. It was leaving me a little bit, and then I went into this season and felt good.
Coleman will lead out Everton against Crystal Palace today, a feat scarcely imaginable when he first signed for that bargain fee.
But as he said then, he never doubted himself.
I never worried. I never doubted myself. Look, I know that there have been times in my career that I have been doubted, there’s been times before my injury, and after, that I’ve been doubted, but I never doubt myself. You’ve just got to keep believing.
From Killybegs to a Premier League club legend. All for sixty grand...
