Sixty Grand, Sixty Grand... Seamus Coleman

In 2009, Everton spent just £60,000 on a young defender from Sligo Rovers. Seamus Coleman was raw. But immediately, it was clear — he was Everton. He just got it. 

Spirit, fight, heart, commitment, and no lack of quality. 

And for all the usual names that get floated around, given the fee Everton paid, in this writer’s view, Coleman should be considered as the greatest signing in the Premier League era. Bar none.

Now, 17 years and a club-record 372 Premier League appearances later, Coleman’s Everton adventure is coming to an end.

It’s hard not to get emotional while writing this. I hadn’t even turned 14 when Everton signed Coleman in January 2009. I’m now 31. And across all that time, that man has been integral at the football club I love so much.

Coleman’s Everton debut came in a 5-0 loss to Benfica, when he played at left-back, as memory serves, in October 2009. He had first had to overcome surgery on a career-threatening blister, which had become infected.

Three days later, he came off the bench to make his Premier League debut and helped Everton turn the tide and fight back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with Tottenham at Goodison Park. Coleman came on at right wing and surged up and down the flank — energy, passion, drive. All of it was clear straight from the off.

David Moyes has often pointed to youngsters having to play out of position to earn their stripes. You can begrudge him for that, and people can say football has moved on since the 2000s — maybe it has — but the example he can point to is Coleman.

Having helped Blackpool gain promotion to the Premier League while on loan there in 2010, Coleman broke into the Everton team on the right of midfield. He scored four goals and was nominated for the 2010-11 PFA Young Player of the Year award.

His peak really began in 2012, when he began to phase Tony Hibbert out of the team and played in his proper position, as a right-back. It is no exaggeration to say that, for the next two or three years, Coleman was among the best full-backs not just in the Premier League, but in Europe. On the opposite flank, Leighton Baines reigned supreme. Let’s face it, we Evertonians didn’t know how good we had it at that stage.

There was that awful leg break in 2017, which could have marked the end for a lesser man, but this is Coleman we’re talking about.

Coleman was the obvious pick for captain when Phil Jagielka left Everton in 2019, and it’s a good job it was he who had the armband as Everton had to negotiate their toughest days of the modern era.

It is once again no exaggeration to say that without Coleman setting the standards and driving the team on, Everton would surely have gone down in 2022, 2023 or even 2024. 

“This fella, let me just say in front of everyone, you are one of the best people I have ever met, as a man and as a player too,” Frank Lampard told Everton’s squad after the Toffees’ remarkable win over Crystal Palace in 2022, in which Coleman had won the foul that led to the free-kick for Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s winner. 

There’s not enough space in one article, which is already a bit of a ramble as it is, to fit in all the adulation directed Coleman’s way by managers, team-mates and opponents, past and present. Not just for his quality as a player, but as a person — a leader, a friend and a fan.

Now, it’s time to say goodbye.

On Sunday, Evertonians will get the chance to say farewell at Hill Dickinson Stadium to a modern-day great whose only blemish on his Everton copybook will be that he was never able to win silverware. That is no fault of Coleman’s.

This is a man that asked the club to buy a right-back five years ago, as he felt he was no longer able to offer the same levels as he could earlier in his career. This is a man that has played through the pain barrier time and time again. This is a man that has led Everton through good times and bad. A man who was cheering on the travelling Toffees even as he was taken off on a stretcher at King Power Stadium in a vital clash against Leicester City in May 2023. That could have been the end for him; it wasn’t.

“Sixty grand, sixty grand, Seamus Coleman” will echo around Hill Dickinson Stadium on Sunday, and Coleman will get his chance to say goodbye, too.

Whether he stays on to join the coaching staff, or continues his playing days as he approaches 38, will be up to Coleman. What will never change is the impact he has made on this football club.

He led Everton out in the final game at Goodison Park, and he has captained the club into a new era. David Moyes persuaded Coleman to stay for this season in order to aid the transition, not just from one ground to another, but of a squad reshuffle. 

Coleman will no doubt take his tally of Premier League games to 373 on Sunday, and in doing so, he will move into the top 10 for all-time Everton appearances, ahead of Leon Osman and the iconic Dixie Dean, on 434.

Seamus, thank you.

Read more - Coleman's goodbye message to Everton

 

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