• LA Galaxy coach wants striker to return as agreed
• First game of Major League Soccer season is on 27 March
Everton could be frustrated in their efforts to extend the loan of the striker Landon Donovan after the player’s parent club, LA Galaxy, said they had no intention of allowing him to remain on Merseyside any longer than was initially agreed. His temporary contract with Everton expires following next weekend’s game against Birmingham City.
Such has been the 28-year-old’s impact at Goodison Park, with Donovan adding balance and pace to David Moyes’ side and requiring little time to adapt to the English game, that the club’s officials, encouraged by the American, had approached LA Galaxy about extending the original 15 March deadline. The first game in the new MLS season is on 27 March but Everton had hoped to negotiate a return in mid-April.
However, that now seems unlikely. “We’re not interested,” said Bruce Arena, the Galaxy coach. “Landon will be back here 15 March. We’re being consistent with everything we’ve said all along.”
That is not the end of the matter, though, with Arena revealing Everton’s bid to retain Donovan may yet succeed as a result of threatened industrial action in the MLS.
The American league is currently in talks with its players’ union regarding a new labour agreement but, with doubts persisting over the progress of those discussions, there is a chance the start of the new season could be delayed. The Galaxy are due to begin the new campaign against New England but that game may be put on hold if no deal is reached, with fresh talks planned for next week.
“Obviously the collective bargaining could change that,” Arena said. “If we didn’t have a league going on, we would certainly entertain the idea of allowing Landon to stay there. If we have a league, Landon’s going to be playing for the Galaxy.”
Before Arena’s comments, Moyes had appeared confident of reaching an agreement with the MLS club. “With Landon, all parties are quite keen to extend his loan deal and we may now get to keep him for a while longer, which would be great news,” Moyes had said. “We are still talking, but we would hope to extend the agreement because he has had such a massive impact since arriving here. We are looking at keeping him for maybe another month.
“To hit the ground running like he has, against the best teams in the Premier League, is a major achievement and we would like to keep him for much longer. Look at the games he has been pitched into, against the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea, and yet he has taken to it immediately. He’s proven how good a player he is, and we want to keep him.”
While Donovan is a certainty for the US squad in South Africa, injury permitting, his team-mate Phil Jagielka is facing an uphill struggle to find a way back into Fabio Capello’s thinking before the England manager announces his World Cup squad. The Everton defender has just returned from a 10-month absence caused by a cruciate knee injury and is a doubt for tomorrow’s visit of Hull due to a thigh problem. But Moyes is convinced the 27-year-old still has a chance of providing cover for Rio Ferdinand and John Terry this summer.
“There is still almost a third of the season left to play and so there is still time for Jags to stake his claim and show he is capable of making the England squad,” the Everton manager said. “When you look at the central defence it is Ferdinand and Terry, and then at the next level below them there seemed to be Jags, Joleon Lescott and Matthew Upson competing to be next in line. Before he was injured, if anything Phil had got to the front of that queue, but now I’d say he’s a little bit behind the other two and he’s got a lot of work to do to catch up again.
“But because he hasn’t played he’ll be fresh, and because of what he has missed out on over the last year he’ll be hungry. You’ve got to imagine the England manager will be at Everton games pretty often between now and the end of the season to watch Leighton Baines, and if Jags can show in those games, then who knows?”
EvertonDavid MoyesPremier LeagueAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk
