Everton told Jean-Philippe Gbamin ‘had to rest’ before suffering key injury

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Few would dispute the notion that Everton are a club in disarray, having desperately scrambled towards survival for two years now.

There have been heroes made, and plenty more villains forged, with Sean Dyche the latest of the former hoping to bring some stability and expel the need for such extreme character arcs. A safe and steady side is all the fanbase craves now, set to lead them into their new stadium without constant fear of the drop.

Intelligence in the market is a must, especially with FFP more stringent than ever, with their work in expelling the dead wood of the past integral in easing such issues.

That was clearly the thought process when they terminated Jean-Philippe Gbamin’s contract in the summer, although his agent has since resurfaced to shed light on the Ivorian’s ill-fated £25m tenure in Merseyside.

Speaking to The Guardian, Bernard Collignon would claim: ‘When JP signed at Everton in 2019, he came straight from Afcon and then had a three-week break after a long season. He had to rest. But after four days training with Everton, JP played a match. He had not done a pre-season. The next game, he played 90 minutes!

‘This is not just an Everton problem though, this is an English problem – clubs don’t know how to manage a player regarding injuries.

‘This is the reputation. Players are signed to very high salaries. But because of that, they are expected to play, whether you are fit or not. They don’t care. The intensity of the Premier League is so high that when a player is injured or not fit, they should recover slowly, step by step.’

What went wrong for Jean-Philippe Gbamin?

Although some of his injury troubles could be attributed to the Toffees’ mismanagement, there were also a couple of freak incidents which few could have accounted for.

A knee injury in training was described as exactly that by the Daily Mail in 2021, just a year after he had ruptured his Achilles playing Foot Tennis.

How Everton were supposed to account for such outcomes is ludicrous, but admittedly there was a desperation to find an instant successor to Idrissa Gana Gueye, who had joined Paris-Saint Germain that same summer as his move.

It is a testament to such a disappointing attempt that the ageing Senegal international has since returned to retake his place, rendering Gbamin utterly useless across his four years at Goodison Park.

In the end, he would fail to live up to such expectations, having merely been a drain on the club’s ever-dwindling resources whilst featuring just eight times.