Source: Liverpool_Echo
Royal Blue: Tony Hibbert won't make way at Everton FC
PREMIER LEAGUE business resumes tomorrow and many will be anticipating that it will be a case of 'out with the old, in with the new'.
Now that John Heitinga is ready to start life as the most the expensive defender in Everton's history and Diniyar Bilyaletdinov has been drafted in to bring flair and creativity to the midfield, it is only natural that people will expect them to be instantly accommodated.
Given the positions Heitinga and Bilyaletdinov occupy, many will be expecting Tony Hibbert and Leon Osman - who between them have made 424 appearances since graduating from the club's Academy - to now be pushed into the shadows.
In football, though, it is dangerous to assume anything, particularly so when you are talking about players who have been brought up to know nothing other than to fight, fight, fight for the Royal Blue jersey.
Debates over whether Osman and Hibbert can help Everton go forward have taken place ever since the FA Cup final, when they came off worse in their battle respective battles with Ashley Cole and Florent Malouda.
Hibbert's afternoon was ruined almost immediately when he was booked for tangling with Malouda and he toiled in sweltering conditions until David Moyes replaced him at half-time with Lars Jacobsen, now of Blackburn Rovers.
The early summer pursuit of Sheffield United's Kyle Naughton simply added to the feeling that Hibbert - who, do not forget, is Everton's longest serving player - would not find starts easy to come by in the new campaign.
Players, though, are not immune to such talk and Hibbert has been aware from an early stage that people have been asking questions about him - and that is why he is ready to raise his game once again.
