Off the back of a decent 3-0 win over Southampton, is it time Everton and especially Ronald Koeman showed that the former is not the ‘underachievers’ or ‘plucky Everton’ of yesteryear?
I will start with the summer, Koeman was already in, Steve Walsh was brought in after making Leicester Premier league Champions with his savvy buys and of course, Farhad Moshiri the Iranian businessman who promised to use his financial prowess to get the blues back to their rightful place in the big time of the Premier League.
Loaded with the sense that big names are coming in, supporters minds went into overdrive with the names that could join the club. Axel Witsel, Juan Mata, Lucas Perez gave the impression that the club meant business. The trouble was, no Europe, not even Europa, to persuade these players to join the coming revolution that Koeman had wanted to start and let’s face it, two dire 11th place finishes to boot.
The signings that crossed the line Dominic Calvert-Lewin from League one Sheffield Utd, Idrissa Gueye from relegated Aston Villa, Maarten Stekelenburg from Fulham, Ashley Williams from Swansea and Yannick Bolasie from Crystal Palace for a whopping (by his standards I might add) £25m+ fee did nothing to persuade the blues that times are about to change. This moan becoming apparent when it seemed that the old guard that had been lacklustre in the Bobby Martinez regime had still been getting new deals and been played in games when they generally didn’t need to. The less said about the Moussa Sissoko debacle the better.
With this, Everton started the season brightly with four wins and a draw from the first five Premier League games, the boo boys hadn’t had their knives out just yet. Having said that the blues went on a run of out of sorts performances which started with a dismal display vs Norwich in the league cup with a 0-2 reverse.
A draw with City was seen as a step in the right direction only for the blues to beaten at turf moor by newly promoted Burnley. A sense of here we go again had set in with the Everton faithful. The problem with the draws that they accumulated with Palace and Swansea and the Burnley defeat, was the displays showed the fans nothing different to the previous regime. Lack of passion, no urgency, lack of any kind of plan and the ever present lack of how to defend set pieces had also been shown through this dismal period.
A win at West Ham calmed the nerves, but the Goodison faithful was in for a much worse kind of defeat….
Chelsea 5-0 Everton. With the absence of shining star Gueye, Koeman shuffled the pack to have three at the back to counteract the hosts own three at the back starting eleven. This would prove costly as the Chelsea team made light work of the defence which seemed to age about 100 years in the game and with no attacking threat by Everton, a solemn mood had once again come over Everton fans.
More dismal performances vs Watford, Southampton and a struggling Swansea heaped more pressure on Koeman. Even a draw with a below-par Manchester United did nothing to cushion the blow for the fans. The fans had now spoken, Jagielka- too old, Stekelenburg- not good enough, Barkley- not doing anything, Barry- too old too slow etc. Play the kids that seem to have a hunger about them.
As a long suffering fan of Everton myself, I have lived through the dark days of Mitch Ward, Tony Thomas with Franny Jeffers up top on his own. Them days seemed much more straight forward, we were rubbish and we knew it anything else was a bonus. This group of lads we have now, can do it, we have seen them do it time and time again, it’s the hope that kills you!
Forget the derby and the Sadio Mane winner (which we all knew was coming) and look at the win at Arsenal, the comfortable away win vs the champions (they may be poor, but still the champions) and also what brings me to the present day a very spirited second half performance vs the Saints.
This brings me to the January window. We have a lot of deadwood that needs forgetting and binning- Bryan Oviedo, Darron Gibson, Tom Cleverley, and Gerard Deulofeu are to name a few. The Bolasie injury came at a terrible time too. The positives (yes, there is positives), Ross Barkley has found his feet once again, Gana Gueye is the most inhuman man in the world with his stellar Midfield performances, Tom Davies a local lad made good and of course, Romelu Lukaku who continues to break all the scoring records we have had for many seasons which truth be told is embarrassing.
January will be an interesting window, I, myself, have faith in Koeman and Steve Walsh to pull transfers out of the bag to improve the squad. It’s time to forget the summer and concentrate on the now, bringing in younger, hungrier players instead of the short term fixes of old.
Maybe, once again we will see Everton end this barren run of trophy-less years and move forward with a new stadium and a competent manager that we have yearned for….Ronald, it’s over to you!
