The Everton midfielder started against the Cherries on Saturday.
Everton saw their fine run of form come to an end this weekend as they lost 2-1 away to Bournemouth, but there are still plenty of reasons for Toffees fans to feel positive heading into 2018.
The appointment of Sam Allardyce as the new Everton boss has seen the feel-good factor return to Goodison Park and it will be interesting to see how the Toffees do in the next 12 months.
One player who will be hoping to make up for lost time is midfielder James McCarthy, who returned to the Premier League match day squad for the game against the Cherries only to be replaced at half-time.
The Republic of Ireland international has been out for most of the season with knee and hamstring injuries, yet he returned for the EFL Cup game against Chelsea and again took to the field for the league game against Bournemouth.
Unfortunately things did not go according to plan, and McCarthy was replaced by Everton skipper Wayne Rooney at the break.
McCarthy has long been linked with a move away from the Toffees and he will want to prove his worth now he has returned to the first-team fold.
After Saturday’s game we took to Twitter to see what Everton fans thought of McCarthy’s performance and you can read a selection of what we found below:
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