James Garner: Everton's Rising Star

James Garner used to be Everton’s little secret. Not anymore.

The midfielder has built a reputation at Goodison Park for the kind of full-blooded, relentless displays that win points in ugly away games. At Tottenham on Saturday, that reputation spilled out beyond the blue half of Merseyside and into the wider Premier League conversation.

Up against a home midfield built on almost £200m of talent in Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes, it was Garner who dictated the tone. He snapped into tackles, shut down counters and, crucially, did it all with the authority of a player who now believes this is his stage.

This from a 23-year-old who missed a big chunk of pre-season after hernia surgery.

On Match of the Day, Thomas Frank did not bother to dress it up.

“Garner today was extremely good,” the Brentford boss said in his pundit role. “He is aware; he's talking; he's organising.

“In a high-press situation, he does the recovery, and that's just so exceptional and so important when you are playing against a team who are dominating you.

“He was running so hard, so that's one side of his game, but also so important is his touches. He is a lot on the ball. It's through him that a lot of things are happening.”

The praise kept coming. Ashley Williams, who knows what it takes to protect a back line at this level, looked at Garner and saw a defender’s dream.

"He's really impressive. If you're a centre-back behind him, he's the type of midfielder you want," the former Everton man said.

Everton paid an initial £9m to bring Garner from Manchester United in 2022, a fee that already looks like one of the smartest pieces of business in recent years. United never started him in a Premier League game. He had to go to Nottingham Forest on loan to taste the top flight, playing his part in their promotion push.

Goodison did not get the finished product. It got a talented academy graduate still working out his game, still filling out his frame, arriving at a club wrestling with financial issues and points deductions and cycling through managers. Under Frank Lampard and then Sean Dyche, those first two seasons were about survival and adaptation as much as progression.

Then came 2025-26. Everything changed.

Garner became Everton’s heartbeat. He missed only six minutes of their entire Premier League campaign, driving a European challenge that, for long stretches, felt entirely plausible.

The turning point in perception came in December at Nottingham Forest, of all places. Everton travelled with a depleted squad, under pressure and short of options, and walked away 2-0 winners. Garner scored the opener and bossed the midfield, a performance that felt like a statement to his old club and to the league.

David Moyes, back in the Everton dugout and watching a young midfielder grow in front of him, did not hide his admiration after that game.

“When I came in, I still saw a bit of a boy and I think I now see someone who's turning into a really good leader as well, beginning to take a bit more responsibility and grow up and begin to start to act like a real midfield player,” the manager said.

The numbers back up the eye test. Last season, Garner sat at the top of almost every meaningful metric for Everton. He made the most successful passes. He won the most tackles. He made the most interceptions. He also led the way for assists and chances created, blending graft with guile in a way that every manager craves but few actually get.

The true measure of his influence came when Jack Grealish’s season ended with injury in January. Everton lost their key winger, their main creative outlet. Garner simply absorbed more responsibility. Four of his seven assists arrived after Grealish went down, a midfielder stepping into the creative void and refusing to let the campaign drift.

“He's been fantastic since I came in,” Moyes said. “I didn't realise probably how good he was. He's been so good.”

From overlooked academy graduate at Old Trafford to undisputed main man at Everton, Garner has taken the long route to prominence. The crunching tackles are still there, the running still relentless, but now they sit alongside leadership, vision and end product.

The rest of the league has finally caught up to what Goodison has been watching for a while. The real question now is how far this version of James Garner can take Everton – and how long they can keep hold of him.