Galloway recalled from West Brom loan

A 3 centre back situation of Holgate, Keane and Galloway would be a really good balance – plus we have Pennington coming through, who has a chance to make it anywhere across that backline.

As a young defender still learning his trade in a very difficult league, I've seen Galloway make plenty of mistakes, but I've never seen him kow-tow to anyone.

To me, he is behind Baines but ahead of Garbutt who seems to have been on his holidays since he signed that 3-year contract. Unless we have a real prospect coming through at left-back, we probably need cover for Baines and a left midfielder.

But this season has been a massive setback for him; I agree with those saying Everton should have pulled the plug on his loan with WBA in January rather than waiting till April.

Alisdair (8), like your back 3 – Holgate, Keane and Galloway with Williams, Pennington, possibly Browning as back-ups, assuming Jags hangs up his boots. Baines, Coleman flying up and down the touch lines as wing backs.

However shown some good qualities, Everton should cultivate him as a centre back. Not manybfull backs are that kind of build! Ivanovic is the only name that readily comes to mind.

As a left sided player, a rarer more valuable commodity. Hence Mori's continued involvement until his injury. A left side CB brings balance and options. I hope he can be 'cultured' into a decent player.

Left sided CBs do not come along very often, worth persisting with.

I think Laurie @ 6 was simply trying to say that Brendan has a fighting spirit in him, someone with grit & determination, a dogged in built strength. He sees him as someone who is not a pushover. In sports terms it can mean that someone has tenacity, a stubborn determination, a colloquial variant of the term "doggedness". It used more often in the southern hemisphere in the context of sports.

"That team have less talent across the field, but won the game by showing more MONGREL". Peter Reid was the last real mongrel we had.

Crazy ruling if the other club has returned the player, without the parent club recalling the player.

Will we now be paying his wages, or are West Brom?

None of this applied to Galloway anyway, as Galloway is registered in August / September and then again in January / February as a West Brom player. Therefore, if we register him it counts as a "transfer". so we cannot play him.

Quite why we didn't cancel the loan in January, I do not know. Complex financial agreement, no doubt, but surely there was a loan recall fee and surely it was worth paying?

As for next season, we have a real headache. Coleman and the fella from Southampton (right back who is both out of contract and out of favour - edit: Cuco Martina - this is a done deal, I am told) will compete for right back, along with Holgate.

Then centre back we will have Jags, Williams, Funes, Pennington, Holgate, Galloway, Browning. sheer numbers here tell us we have too many. I think we all agree we need more quality. I would purchase one really top class centre half, such as Keane. Then we would need to assess the rest.

I think Pennington looks good but maybe he needs a season long loan at a championship club who would play him. Holgate I would find a place for as I think the lad will be special, even if it's on the bench most games and as first reserve as he has been. Galloway would Baines' understudy for me, and whilst Baines ain't old at 31/32, he is showing signs of decline as his legs have clearly started to go, and there may be games where we need Galloway's raw speed. For me, he gets a game at left back and not centre back on numbers alone.

Jags should not be written off just yet, he's been almost back to his best the last couple of games. He has invaluable experience. Williams has not done been as good as I expected, but I do not believe he is finished. Up until his sending off against united, he was excellent. so I would keep both of them to help someone like a young Keane.

Which means it is Funes who I would sell. Surely a European club would pay good money for the Argentinian international, whilst a premier league side might see him for the liability he is.

As for Lescott, do you not remember Baines was signed and Moyes would not play him that first season, he just did not trust him. So we had a back four of Hibbo, Yobo, Jags and Lescott. Not much got past them.

I always liked Yobo who had a good season that year before Lescott took his place mostly because Baines got a run and showed his class. Moyes did the same with Coleman and never trusted him and got him learning the right back role from Right mid! I think it took Seamus even longer to convince Moyes to drop old dependable Hibbo, although injuries had caught up with him.

one thing I always wanted to ask on Hibbo, is this. Why did England never give him a game? Overall he was never international class as he was terrible on the ball. but for me, as terrible as he was in the opponent's half, he was sensational in his own half, especially when he still had his pace. Others will still recall Hibbo v Ronaldo, his finest moment. Back to the question, England always inevitably come up against a superior team, Germany, Brazil or whoever, who will have all of the ball and have us defending for our lives. So why have an attacking fullback like Glenn Johnson doing that job, when Hibbo was far better at it? Surely he could be in the side just to come in and defend in these games when needed, or to be brought on to shut up shop when needed. For me, England do not look at taking these specialist defenders, and do not look tactically enough, as say do an Italy side. it's much harder to slot a side together with players like Kyle Walker than a player like Hibbo, where the centre half will know Hibbo is always going to be to his right, and not bombing on losing possession and leaving gaps. Any thoughts?

In that context, Holgate and Galloway make sense. It could be that either (or both, eventually) could end up central. In that case we could squeeze the game in a way that we've not been able to do since Radcliffe and Stevens.

The manager will buy quality if given the chance but height and pace will weigh heavily in his selections.

These days, if you are a full back, you need pace, and an engine that can last a full game, and a good cross and a shot in your locker. I wonder whether these guys will play on into their mid thirties, as once their pace goes, they can't do the job.

Glen Johnson was always positionally poor and Kyle Walker suffers from the same problem. Having top quality centre halves always helps, and Walker looks better because of the two classy lads he has alongside.

It will be good for Galloway to get used to the training methods before the new season. We have so many promising young players, let's hope that they continue to progress.

Baines may well miss Pienaar, but he rarely goes for the byline any more. He has changed his game, and cuts in to good effect, but teams know he isn't going to burn someone for pace down the wing anymore.

That is, when we suddenly defend more than we attack and Kyle Walker's defensive skills are clearly not good enough. Should we not have a Hibbo type player ready to play this game, and if we win the games beyond it?

But we'll go with your anecdote.

In a big tournament, England are a mid-table or bottom half standard. So they should select the players who can play that way. I was looking forward to Allardyce in a championship to see if he would do just that. Select a load of battlers who are far from the most talented players we have, but would fight like the likes of Iceland did, and produce a result.

Dele Alli has it in him also – interestingly they were both recruited from Milton Keyes. Perhaps Steve Walsh should be having a look at their current crop of players.

Mo Besic has it in him. I see he had half a game with the Under-23s – I hope he continues to progress in his recovery. We haven't seen the best of that lad.

I started to giggle when you posed the question why Hibbo never played for England. However when I composed myself and read the rest of your post I admit you do have a point. He was an excellent defender (Cup final in 2009 was his worst game and if I re-call he was recently returned from injury and having been booked early doors just kind of froze).

But he just couldn't pass the ball. But agree if you want to stop Germany in their tracks then clearly a better option than Johnson. No England manager could survive making such a ballsy call though!

However, I still recall Big Ron (Atkinson) describing him as the "best man-to-man marker in the league". I recall it word for word as it shocked me to hear a player I thought as crap described in such a way. Big Ron managed him at Sheff Weds and clearly rated him. He did win a couple of caps. But my overall view of him, and I was only a child at the time, was that he wasn't as good as Matt Jackson.

We had history of doing this:- Keith Newton was an England right back who we played at left back; Henry Newton an England defensive midfielder we played at left back; Mike Bernard an England U23 defensive midfielder we played at right back.

Some worked and some didn't but Todd was a ridiculous waste to the point of scandalous.

How the hell Watson only got 12 caps for England is a mystery to me, especially as most of them came from before he joined us and became League Champion, I mean how did that compute? Mid-table struggler, yeah you're good enough, playing up north for the Champions as the most expensive centre back in the UK? No, you're dropped.

I remember Waggy playing for Hong Kong against England for a pre Euro 96 warm up, when Gazza did the infamous dentist chair, and boy was he amazing despite his old age (then 35) and lack of cohesion with his teammates.

For this biased blue, the finest centre half (especially organisationally) I have personally seen, though I would like to have had a closer look at a younger Richard Gough.

I saw Colin Todd play for us at Maine Road in the league. Granted it was a long time ago, but I recall that day I saw one of the classiest defensive performances in a Royal Blue jersey of my 50 years as an Evertonian.

Terrible waste of talent- at his peak a better player than the great Kevin Ratcliffe but we seldom witnessed this because of playing him in the wrong position.

Do you not remember, when we signed Baines, he was injured??

Brunt and Dawson are good seasoned pros and WBA have done so incredibly well this year it's hardly surprising he didn't get much of a look in once he was injured.

I think this lad will kick on and become a really good defender. Remember he played in that Chelsea game last year at Goodison and provided an assist for the first goal, that's a big thing to have on your CV!!

Damn statistics!

In the championship season, 69-70, Tommy Wright played all 42 games, Sandy 31 and Newton 12. The following season, Wright played 40 games and Newton 21, so Tommy was very much still our #2 at that time.

Ernie Hunt was another- £80k we paid which was a big fee in the late sixties and because he was a midfielder who scored a few goals (including a couple against us) Catterick put him up front with Joe as he couldn't disturb the holy trinity. Ernie wasn't a striker and was moved on after 12 games and three goals (I think – Patrick will doubtless know for sure).When he bought Henry Newton he moved Kendall to centre back against Radford and Kennedy who of course ripped him apart as they were twice his size and hence why Henry was played at left back (he did well there).

To get back to Earl Barrett he was an excellent centre-back with great pace and was wasted at full-back.

I think Galloway will make a great central defender in the mould of John Hurst who was a class player at his best.

I cannot remember having seen much of Earl Barrett as a centre back but have no reason to doubt your opinion of him. And I doubt if Ernie Hunt was ever good enough for our team!

Was it a testimonial for Dixie around 1964 when a team of Everton and RS Scots played a team of Everton & Liverpool English players and the Scots team looked way stronger? I went to the game but was only around 8 and don't remember the score.

Alex Parker, now there's a player from the archives, I met Alex a few times in the early 70s.

I came out of the Navy and found it difficult to get a house in Liverpool, and moved to Runcorn, who were welcoming people with open arms.

The Shopping Precinct near Castlefields had a pub there, called the 'Swinging Sporran' and Alex was the manager.

Being a fellow Scot, and both having Everton connections, I had a few conversations with great man.

I recall him scoring from the halfway line once in a match, but can't remember which one it was. Maybe someone can enlighten us there.

Thanks for the memory.