McCarthy injury may need surgery as speculation swirls over his future

How can we replace Gareth Barry? What a player but even he isn't good enough to get us to the top. He wasn't good enough for Man City and he isn't good enough for us longer term. God answered our prayers in the early '80s with Kevin Sheedy, can we have another one?

We can't expect Barry to play every game at his age and JM is a good option to fill in for him, anyway it's a mute point now, Koeman has already said he will not be sold and with this injury no chance he'll be gone this coming week.

I respectfully disagree. McCarthy and Barry are completely different players in my opinion.

James is more like Gana and would be a better deputy for him. Gana is doing everything McCarthy was supposed to be doing last season. If we could get the James McCarthy 2013-14 version back he would have a lot to offer us.

"Apparently seen in Glasgow today" – by who?

Let's hope they find a solution, surgery or otherwise. Fully fit, he would improve the majority of Premier League squads – including ours.

Just met James McCarthy in mount Florida I asked "you coming to the hoops" he replied "hopefully" OMGGGGGG pic.twitter.com/BdHSuuQcw8

— Reiss Moran (@rmoran1999) 27 August 2016

If we are to lose him – a risk if we don't sign someone else for CM while Besic is injured – I'd prefer it be a cash sale but that's just me

No one who has been on this site for many years will have missed my view that Walter Smith saved Everton. Or indeed the respect I have for the admirable Neil Lennon. But, McCarthy is better than that.

Are you joking? The performances were rubbish. What we 'achieved' in his reign was rubbish – that period was God awful!!!

It's due to reigns like his that I'm so grateful we had Moyes (and I can see that Moyes had major limitations).

That's one of the most amazing things I've ever read on this site.

As he can do a bit of wing back and full back as well as providing depth for the mid, he would be handy to keep around, for now. I doubt Koeman is looking to weaken the squad too much at the moment but if he stays I can see Koeman dealing him out in January or next summer.

Oh, and Gareth Barry was a mainstay of the Man City side that won its first Premier League a few years back. Definitely good enough for them.

I'd hoped to see James kick on but, if not, that's fine – we need better than he's shown for the last two years anyway.

Seriously. £8 million. I have no doubt that we will get our money back and probably more. McCarthy has many critics on TW but he is definitely a footballer who will be in high demand to other EPL clubs.

I remember when he first burst into the scene as a 16-year-old at Hamilton Academicals. He was a classic box-to-box midfielder who was hyped to have a huge future. He had loads of big name teams watching him including Man Utd, Liverpool as well as teams across Europe. He ended up signing for Wigan in a double deal with James McAthur.

Under Martinez, he pushed him into a defensive midfielder role, probably in the same style a Martinez as a player. Being retrained in that role sucked any creative play out of him and basically turned him into the midfield enforcer, breaking up general play. His first season here he did really well in that role along side Barry. Unfortunately he never added to it and severely lacked any creative element to be anything other than a basic footballer.

The other players in that midfield area (Gueye, Besic and Barry) all can do the same job, and each have a creative element to their games. Even grandpa Barry has shown that at even at 36, his driving runs and scoring threat puts McCarthy to shame. With the squad we have, and potentially new reinforcements, I'd take an offer for him. I think there's teams who would pay £15-20m for him on his form from 2 years ago.

Imo Jimmy Mc still has a lot to offer the club, and unless we replaced him would leave a huge gap. Gibson and Cleverly simply are not on his level, and Besic is injured and still unproven at the level.

If we do not need the money then there are many at the blues is ship out before McCarthy.

He wasn't even that good in his first season. He was good up till Christmas and then as awful afterwards as he's been recently.

The real shame is ,against Man Utd last season and against Arsenal the season before, he showed he could play like Gueye but for some reason he never consistently did it.

Mo Besic, OK, I want Mo to stay and get strong and contest. Because of any of "The taxi lads" he has feistiness and that is rare. But like ALL of these lads the clock is running and I am tired of Everton being a "sympathy club", a home for footballers with broken dreams.

Sympathy and "maybe he" has won us precisely fuck all since 1995. An end to the players who can't complete the equivalent of a full season of appearances over a three or four year contract.

Then replace the emptied squad places with keen to impress, fit and talented graduates of the Academy?

If the graduates make the grade (as Holgate & Davies seemingly are) then they progress; if not, then (like Ledson) they go elsewhere and grab the opportunity to prove themselves.

Just let's not have a complete reserve team of "sicknotes" and "nearly men".

Unfortunately his biggest problem seems to be fitness.

Now we are playing at pace again, I think he could be useful to the team. On the other hand, he is no longer garunteed his place and his wage is too high for a back up player. Might be time to cash in and use the money on a Barry back up. Tom Davies could be our GGana back up.

As an additional note on players and playing style, I was sorta surprised at Kone's cameo yesterday. He looked useful playing at pace and holding things up when required. But, for me, it's too little to late.

I'm not sure exactly how we should judge McCarthy other than how he performed under Martinez since most of his career has been under him. The problem I think is that he may look a stand out in a slow, lethargic, unfit Martinez side but then looks more exposed when compared to an all action Gana Gueye.

The fact that he has seemingly asked to leave yesterday, three games in, rather than fight for a place, doesn't exactly say much about his attitude either.

See ya, Jimmy, good luck with Celtic and the Belgium passport application; Everton are moving up and if you can't keep up, you are left behind.

He's a good player, but whether he can get his spark back at the club is questionable. The side will suffer injuries and loss of form and we'll need a fit James McCarthy.

Season 1 was played with a bit of tempo about it. McCarthy played well. As the possession obsession gained momentum he became less and less effective. He's just not that type of player.

If he can get fit then he'd be a good back up for our centre mids. I'm not convinced his wages cause a problem there – decent players get decent pay. We can't always rely on youngsters. And if he took a move to guarantee first team football he'd almost certainly be looking at moving lower down the established ranks.

I think Jimmy Mac looked better because he had fitter players doing more closing down and gradually they stopped and he got lumbered with the job of specialist DM thanks to the ridiculous Roberto. When he got a lot more to do, he got exposed.

I don't really think James McCarthy is a bad player, I just think he is very limited and we need and are demanding better right now, and Koeman is either challenging the existing staff to step up to his standards or is replacing them with better.

I think McCarthy knows it too, and that's why he wants to leave.

He's been struggling with the same injury for about 9 months. Why would we want to get rid? What happens if Gueye gets injured tomorrow? Ridiculous.

Also – our win percentage goes up when he's in the team.

So what? Still not good enough being one of the better players in a poor performing team that finished in the bottom half of the league for the past two seasons and if you think we were only rubbish in the second half of last season then I don't know what to say.

Not a bad player? Yes. Good player? No I'm struggling a bit with that. Standards just got lowered and now they are climbing again. Good enough for us going forward? No not at all, and he doesn't apparently want to be a squad player either, which is fair enough.

Anyway, in this market surely he's worth £15m at least, probably more like £20m.

He's going to be back up at best with us now. I'll be surprised if he's still with us next weekend.

Perhaps if he wasn't mainly making sideways 5 yard passes and looked to get play moving forward more he would be worth keeping. Saying that, though, in my opinion there are other players that need moving on before him.

The same can be said for 2 or 3 players at the club who have seemed to blag it thus far.

"Wanted for hire: excellent, skillful, physical footballers with a real zest for triumph. Blaggers need not apply!
Apply within."

Thanks for posting that. I have a very good friend living in Glasgow - massive Celtic fan and knows a right few Celtic FC employees and after speaking with him last night he said that Everton had offered three players to Celtic but McCarthy was not one of them.

I'm sure you guess who we are trying to offload!

Unlike others on here, I could understand perfectly if McCarthy wanted to join Celtic: big fish in little pond – just like Barton – but it would be a loan, they would not have the cash Everton would be looking for.

For example, this latest hideous rumour regarding Ballotelli among others.

Best for JM to move on as his one trick pony football doesn't really fit with RKs tactics. We need more than just passing slowly backwards or sideways. Shame for McCarthy, I wonder what kind of player he would have been had he not had the misfortune to play under Martinez for most of his senior career.

Not sure about a loan move to Celtic given we'd presumably still be paying the vast majority of his wages, a transfer would be better.

The only thing Walter Smith saved us all from was collective insomnia as Goodison. I derived more entertainment from one thirty minute episode of his fellow Scot Rab C Nesbitt than from Everton's performances under Smiths tenure.

My pre match banter with friends under happy chappy Walters reign was how many defenders and cente halves he could get on to this pitch at any one time. He made his replacement Moyes look carefree in comparison.

I was seen in St.Asaph last Friday but I can assure you I have no intention of signing for them.