Cringeworthy would best describe the moment at Goodison Park last Saturday when Roberto Martínez made his first substitution of the season and the face of the man tasked with shaking Everton out of their lethargy against Watford appeared on the giant TV screens. As he waited on the touchline to replace young Brendan Galloway, Arouna Koné, the visage in question and a striker seeking to rescue his career following serious injury, was greeted with indignation.
The reception may not have been personal, more a release from a crowd frustrated by another ponderous Everton display, by trailing at home to Premier League newcomers and by an ominously quiet summer in the transfer market, but the mistrust in a striker who followed Martínez from Wigan Athletic in 2013 was unmistakable. Thirteen minutes later he teed up a ferocious equaliser for Ross Barkley. Ten minutes after that Koné was on his knees and kissing the turf having scored himself. He hopes to have salvaged something far more precious than one Premier League point.
Koné’s 86th-minute leveller against Watford was his first goal for Everton at Goodison. He has only one other, away in defeat at Newcastle United last season, having been beset by injury since his arrival for £5m two years ago. And not just any injury. The 31-year-old makes a gesture akin to a spoon scooping ice-cream as he explains how surgeons in Barcelona removed bone from his knee to enable the joint to move freely again after, as Martínez once succinctly put it, “a chunk of cartilage has come off in his knee”. That was November 2013, when the Ivory Coast international was warned it could be two years before he played regular first-team football again. To incite any reaction from a crowd at this juncture, therefore, is a relief.
“I promised myself during my long recovery period that I would show the fans what I am capable of,” says Koné. “I want to do it for myself too because I have my own goals, but I know I need to impose myself, to do it for the club and to remind the fans I am here. It has been the most testing injury of my career. It never reached the extent that I feared I might not come back from it but obviously there have been times when I had my doubts.
“Saturday was the first time since the injury that everything came together – my skills, my will and my ability. There were times last season when I was coming back from the injury and, just as I thought it was going well, I’d have a setback. I feel it will be different this time. At the moment everything is coming together and I am performing like I used to. I said to Romelu [Lukaku] when Watford went 2-1 up that we have to come back from this and equalise. Then when we equalised I told him we could win it. It was a shame we couldn’t do it but a draw wasn’t a bad result.”
Even without last Saturday’s reception fresh in the mind, it would be hard not to feel sympathy for Koné given how his Everton career has unfolded. His total number of first-team starts has not reached double figures before Saturday’s trip to Southampton. The former PSV Eindhoven forward is an unassuming, humble character who has cut short visits to his parents in Anyama, Ivory Coast, for the past two summers to rehabilitate at a clinic in Belgium at his own request. Last season’s reward was meagre – 16 appearances and more setbacks than goals. This season he and Everton need to see the benefits.
“The injury was to my cartilage and the meniscus,” he explains. “The meniscus was cracked and then it was excised. In hospital they made a trench shape in my knee to protect it. For the first six months afterwards I trained solidly from 10am to 4pm, seven days a week. I had to rebuild the muscle mass that I had lost and I had to address issues with my balance and stability. The third issue was confidence because you become slightly hesitant about using your knee in the same way you would have done previously after the injury. The first six months of the recovery was the hardest time I’ve experienced as a footballer and I’ve spent all of this holiday period preparing for my return.”
Koné has been relatively ignored in the debate over Everton’s need for a new striker to ease the burden on Lukaku, understandably so given his trials of the past two seasons. The prominent substitute appearance against Watford prompted Martínez to claim: “We saw the player Arouna can be for probably the first time since he arrived at Everton.” But the manager is determined to sign another forward before 1 September. The former Sevilla and Levante striker is undeterred.
Koné says: “It is not for me to tell the club not to buy another striker because I’m here. The club will do as they see fit but at least now I am fully prepared and ready to do the maximum I can. If another striker were to be brought in it would help the club move forward but I can adapt.
“I have been the front striker and I have played in the hole behind. In fact, I prefer playing in the hole because that role gives you opportunities to create chances as well as take them. If the front striker isn’t in form you can create space for him, you can take your own chances and bring others into play.”
There is an added pressure on Koné this season to justify Martínez’s decision to bring him to Goodison. The 31-year-old is in the final year of his Everton contract and knows his next deal is dependent on proving his fitness and form have returned.
“It is a delicate period for me,” he admits. “When your contract is up you have to look at where you could be going. Should I try to stay here or look somewhere else? It is what you have to do as a footballer in my situation.
“In that sense it is a pressure season but that will encourage me to work with more heart and more courage. It is not a negative thing at all. I know what I can do for this team. I look back to my time at Wigan. I had the time there to really impose myself, show my skills and demonstrate precisely what I could do. So far that has not been the case at Everton. I have to put in a good performance so that, if I do leave, I would leave a good impression.”
