If you’ve been away for the last few weeks, you may have missed the growing attitude among most of us that we really, really don’t care about anything anymore. We all want this season to be over and Sizeable Samuel to be hastily evicted from anything to do with Everton. Now, it may be too much to ask from an Everton boardroom, but if we could have a plan in place to replace the bombastic one come the end of May, that’d be ideal, instead of scrambling about with paying off another club to take their manager and then all of a sudden it’s the middle of August and we’re signing Troy Deeney.
If we could avoid that scenario at all costs please.
But let’s just get the last few games out the way, stay up, and hit the hard reset button and have a bargain bin sale at the start of July.
And if Everton could refrain from advertising season tickets as we’re 1-0 down to Watford in the future, that would be another positive.
We’re all about the hypothetical optimism today.
Until you see the team.
GK - Jordan Pickford
Still nothing interesting to say on this one. He just plays.
RB - Séamus Coleman
Is he fit? Probably not. He still plays though.
Love you Jonjoe but we’re putting it on hold for a while.
CB - Mason Holgate
The centre-back pairings in recent weeks haven’t half been vocal about how good the other is and how frustrated they are about not keeping clean sheets.
I can’t quite get behind waxing all of the lyrical and then not performing come Troy Deeney time, so both of them are dropped.
Mason starts.
CB - Ramiro Funes Mori
Á la Séamus Coleman, is he fit? Probably not. Is he playing? Indeed.
LB - Leighton Baines
He’s been training in Dubai and Everton Twitter has been severely pushing the narrative that ‘he’s back’, so by all accounts, he can play.
And by God, he’s going to play.
CM - Idrissa Gana Gueye
Sticking with the three-man-midfield, Gana starts as the defensive workhorse.
I say that like it’ll come as a surprise.
I’ll spring Morgan Schneiderlin on you next week and you won’t know what’s hit you.
CM - Davy Klaassen
He’s back. He just needs to play.
Although, I’m not sure that trying to build his confidence by playing in a Sam Allardyce side is going to work very well.
Maybe wait until the new, young and handsome manager arrives in the summer.
CM - Wayne Rooney
Didn’t have a great game against Watford but he’s our only real playmaker who can play deep nowadays so he gets the nod.
Morgan Schneiderlin does not, never have, and never will count.
RW - Theo Walcott
As we’ve established since the middle of January, Theo Walcott is sound and will remain sound until he goes the way of Kevin Mirallas.
Long may his direct running and controversial hairstyle last.
LW - Gylfi Sigurdsson
We need much more from Sigurdsson next season. I won’t try to judge him that much this year, given the manager situation, but when Mr. Dreamy Eyes arrives, then he’s under as much scrutiny as anyone else.
ST - Cenk Tosun
Niasse is quality, and I won’t have that being disputed anymore given his goalscoring record, but Tosun needs minutes.
And we need goals from someone that isn’t Oumar Niasse.