In an era obsessed with ball-playing centre-halves, the Premier League has forgotten how to appreciate a proper defender.

James Tarkowski is not fashionable. He does not ping 60-yard diagonals onto a winger's toe. He does not step out of defence with the grace of a midfielder. What he does is stop goals. And this season, he has done it better than almost anyone in the division.

The numbers are stark, but they only tell half the story.

Among centre-backs with over 1,500 minutes, Tarkowski ranks in the top five for clearances per 90, aerial duels won, and blocks. His partnership with Jarrad Branthwaite has transformed Everton's defence from relegation fodder into a unit that has conceded fewer goals than Manchester City and Liverpool since November. Yet when pundits discuss the league's best defenders — Van Dijk, Saliba, Dias — Tarkowski's name never surfaces.

Why? Because modern football analysis privileges what a defender does with the ball over what he does without it. Tarkowski's pass completion rate sits at 78 per cent, comfortably below the 90-plus of the elite ball-players. But here's the dirty secret: Everton don't need him to play like Beckenbauer. They need him to head the ball, block shots, and organise a backline that has kept 12 clean sheets this season.

The art of defending has become a lost craft, and Tarkowski is its quiet master.

His game is built on the principles that defined the great defenders of the 1990s — Tony Adams, Colin Hendry, Gareth Southgate. Anticipation. Positioning. Courage. Consider the evidence:

  • He has made 168 clearances this season, more than any Everton player and fifth in the league, often under pressure in a deep block.
  • He has won 73 per cent of his aerial duels, including 57 against forwards who routinely dominate weaker centre-backs.
  • He has made 40 interceptions, frequently snuffing out danger before it reaches the penalty area.

These numbers are not accidental. They reflect a defender who reads the game a second faster than his peers. Against Chelsea in December, Tarkowski made three goal-line blocks in a single match — the kind of desperate defending that used to be celebrated as heroism but now goes unmentioned in match reports.

Of course, the counter-argument is obvious: Tarkowski cannot play in a high line, and his distribution limits Everton's attacking potential.

This is true but misses the point. Sean Dyche's Everton sit deep and absorb pressure; Tarkowski's skill set is perfectly calibrated for that system. To criticise him for lacking the progressive passing of a Virgil van Dijk is like criticising a goalkeeper for not scoring goals. The test of a defender is not whether he can play for Manchester City, but whether he makes his team better. Tarkowski does. Since his free transfer from Burnley in 2022, Everton's expected goals against per 90 has dropped from 1.65 to 1.31. That is the impact of one man.

The verdict is simple: Tarkowski is the most underrated defender in the Premier League, and here is my prediction.

If Everton survive this season — and they will, largely because of this defence — Tarkowski will again be overlooked for any individual honours. He will not make the England squad, nor be linked with a top-six club. But when the history of this Everton side is written, his name should appear alongside the club's greatest defensive stalwarts. By May 2024, Tarkowski will have made more than 200 clearances and won over 250 aerial duels — numbers that demand recognition. The only question is whether anyone will bother to notice.

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