A “risk business” is how Dr Ryland Morgans describes football. It is a perfectly understandable outlook. The Welshman, after all, devotes his time to nurturing elite athletes – then watches on for 95 minutes, as the thoroughbreds he has meticulously primed sprint, tackle, leap, stretch, twist and turn.
And Morgans is exceptionally good at what he does: which is get footballers fit. “We have nearly cleared the decks,” he says, in reference to Everton’s fast-dwindling injury list.
A sparsely populated treatment room at USM Finch Farm is testament to that fact. It serves, too, to explain why Sam Allardyce installed Morgans as the Club’s Performance Director within days of being appointed manager at Goodison Park.