One of the less expected victims of David Unsworth’s Everton tenure so far has been Nikola Vlasic. With the Goodison Park caretaker expected to lean on youth, 20 year old Vlasic may have expected his situation to get better, rather than worse.
But Vlasic obviously isn’t the right kind of young player for Unsworth, and has been out of the team, and even out of the match day squad. There’s no injury issue, Vlasic is fit enough to play for Croatia, but Unsworth deems him not good enough for Everton right now.
The international break is often an opportunity to complain about such situations, and whilst Vlasic hasn’t taken that opportunity, his diplomatic words can’t hide how frustrated he is with the situation.
It’s perplexed the Croatian media too, who had been happy with how Vlasic was settling in at Everton.
No doubt faced with repeated questions about his situation, Vlasic is quoted by 24Sata as saying: “It was good at the beginning when I came, but the coach changed… No, I haven’t talked to the new coach about why I don’t play, so it is in professionalism: you do not play – you do not play, you’re on the bench and that’s it, there is no story.”
