But he needs to keep occupied and, during our time together, the issue arises of what happens when his playing career is over. That won’t happen any time soon - he is 29 and committed himself to Everton for five more years in January - but he has thought about the future. Will it involve football?
‘I hope not,’ comes the refreshing answer. ‘As much as I love it - the reason I don’t watch or read about it now is because I am giving everything I can to it - any bits of time that are my own, I come away from it.
‘So when I finish, I think I will get that passion back as I won’t be involved in it. I reckon I would go back as a fan but I’d like to do something else. I just want to try a different world, with different people, different experiences.
‘It’s not that I’m not grateful for what I do now, I just want to try to do something different. I have always been thinking about the next move because it wouldn’t be good for me not to have a job or not have to get up to do something.’
‘I’m aware that when I stop playing, I’m going to have to roll into something else. It wouldn’t be healthy for the alarm to go off and not have something to do.’