Tuesday 3 October 2017

Worst Everton team in over a decade

Everyone can see Everton are struggling but I saw it for myself, first hand last week in the Europa League game at Goodison against Apollon Limassol, which ended in a shambolic 2-2 draw. One might say "hardly the mighty Apollon Limassol, of Cyprus". Things got worse with the 0-1 home defeat to Burnley on Sunday and Everton have gone into the international break badly needing to regroup.

I was suspicious of the almost unbounded optimism during the transfer window. £142M was splurged with the biggest buys being Sigurdsson (£44M), Pickford (£26M), Keane (£26M) and Klassen (£24M). In addition Vlasic came for (£10M), Henry Onyekuru (who he? bought for £7M from Belgian first division side KAS Eupen and loaned straight out to Anderlecht for the season) and Sandro Ramirez came from Malaga for £5M.

I was pleased with the acquisition of Pickford and Keane - good players in needed positions. Pickford has done well, though alarmingly he patted down shots and crosses on multiple occasions against Burnley before gathering the ball. I expect Keane will be a good player for the club, but he doesn't look like the Burnley player who won two England caps last season. After a sound start, he's not looking quick or confident. He badly needs the injured Jagielka alongside rather than the accident prone Williams, who clearly reached his peak for Wales at the Euros 15 months ago and seems to be in steep decline, aged 33.

But the other new players aren't looking good. 7 Premier League games and a few cup ties against modest opposition is early days - though nearly 20% through the Premier League season. However, Sigurdsson looks one paced. I asked whether he would prove to be a good swap for Barkley (my post of 19 July) when it looked like one would arrive and the other depart. The fact that most of Sigurdsson's assists come from set plays worried me and I noted that there were 71 players who created more open play chances than Sigurdsson in the Premier League last season, including Kevin Mirallas and Ross Barkley of Everton. Indeed, Ross Barkley created 54 to Sigurdsson's 25. Adam Bate's comment on Sky Sports (he said "buyer beware") worried me. I'm even more worried now.

In common with many, I thought the club couldn't go wrong with Sandro Ramirez - a Barca academy graduate who scored 14 goals for Malaga in 30 La Liga appearances last season. Even if it didn't work out, they wouldn't lose money, a no-lose deal if ever we saw one. But Ramirez (as an aside why do the Premier League allow players to put what name they want on their shirts? Sandro isn't either of his family names) looks ever more like a startled rabbit and seems to have no idea where the net is. The answer is the club can lose if it goes into a tail spin because the squad is so weak. I'd already be planning to offload Ramirez in January.

Of course, it's not Ramirez's fault that Everton didn't replace Lukaku. He was only ever bought as a squad player/no 2 striker. Had Everton kept hold of Lukaku, which was never likely, the situation would be very different I'm sure. And there has been much emphasis on the gross spend of £142M when the net spend was "only" £46M and would have been fairly small if, as expected, Barkley had been sold before pulling out of a move to Chelsea and then getting injured. The squad needed a much bigger net spend, especially in view of the age profile of the squad with Jagielka, Baines, Williams, Rooney and Lennon all the wrong side of 30, the loss of Lukaku and the seemingly planned loss of Barkley, Koeman saying the player would be sold as he was within 12 months of the end of his contract.

Gary Neville, speaking on Sky, has clearly posited the problem for teams with too many players over 30: they play too deep. Forwards don't run in behind the defenders any more and prefer to drop off and defenders drop ever deeper, Williams being a case in point, ending up nearly treading on his own goalkeeper's toes when Burnley scored their excellent goal on Sunday.

Nevertheless, the failure to buy a proven striker is hugely culpable given the lack of surprise in Lukaku's departure. During the feelgood period when Everton, unusually, got the bulk of their business done early, many thought Rooney provided back up in case a replacement for Lukaku wasn't secured, but I was sceptical (see The Homecoming Prince, 12 July). I wondered if he still had the legs. He has, but not the speed of thought. Moreover, I wonder why Koeman can't get the team to play more aggressively and go forward more. Could it be that the players are looking to Rooney for their lead? He likes to drop off and be involved in the play, often slowing it down.

That tendency of Rooney's has exacerbated the other problem Everton have. The players they have acquired are too similar. There is no balance and variety in the squad. Many have noted that they have signed three "number 10s" in Rooney, Sigurdsson and Klassen. So there is no striker and no width. Which is further aggravated by Koeman having fallen out big time with Mirallas, who has had hardly any game time and is, I assume, heading for the exit in January.

Mirallas is missed because there is no zip in the team, no-one who can speed the game up, in particular by going on a run and drawing players in to them. All the players Everton have signed prefer to pass and move. Or maybe just pass. Sideways or back. Especially Schneiderlin. But I've got another bee in my bonnet about him, besides negativity. I've always said (partly from my own playing experience) that a good big fella will beat an equally talented little fella most of the time. But Schneiderlin strikes me as being one of those footballers who, while blessed with a perfect physique, play as if they are frightened of heading the ball. I hate to see him marking a danger man at corners and free kicks.

Barkley, of course, is different. Even without Lukaku he would bring a different dimension to the current team. Jamie Redknapp, writing in today's Daily Mail, notes:
"...they are lacking a creative spark. I do not see players in this Everton team with pace who are prepared to take on defenders and go past people. They desperately miss Ross Barkley. He creates so many chances and when he is fit I would have him in the team ahead of Sigurdsson."
I've been saying the same. But it seems to be assumed Barkley is still likely to leave, on a free transfer by next summer if a deal can't be found in January, which I expect it won't be. I think Barkley turned down Chelsea because he had no guarantees about his role there - the manager didn't even speak to him directly - and is now pinning his hopes on Spurs. Indeed, perhaps Spurs suggested to Barkley's agent that he should wait. Maybe they will pay him a bit more if they get him for nothing in the summer. It wouldn't surprise me if a deal had been pre-agreed. I still think he'd be daft to go there as I can't see him displacing Eriksen or Alli and I can't imagine Pochettino playing both of them and Barkley except against the weaker teams at home. So he'd only get splinters in his arse sitting on the bench most weeks.

The really worrying thing for me is that this Everton team, admittedly drained of confidence, looks weaker than any in the past decade. Indeed, since Wayne Rooney was last there, as a teenager. Maybe even the weakest since the Walter Smith dog days, but more reasonably since 2003-04 when, in Moyes's 2nd full season, Everton finished 17th. Scary.

If you doubt this, answer me these questions: On what we've seen so far, would you prefer:
  •  Klassen to Osman or Pienaar? Osman was technically very proficient and had a goal in him. Pienaar had that zip from a standing start and willingness to drive at defenders
  • the current centre backs to Weir and Stubbs? Or Joe Yobo?
  • Sandro Ramirez to Andy Johnson? (I agree Johnson cost more but he was the player we had. And of course there was Yakubu.....)
In addition to the above names, players like Cahill, Fellaini (desperately under appreciated at Manchester United by everyone but the manager) Lescott, Neville and probably even Carsley and Hibbert would walk into the team ahead of the players currently wearing the shirts. And of course, the best little Spaniard we knew, The Entertainer, Mikel Arteta*.

So, yes, Everton need a striker. But I suspect that alone might not be enough to stop me being nostalgic for players I hadn't expected to miss so badly after the progress of recent years. It looks to me like a huge snake that they've managed to slide down.

Still, with any luck, Colleen will keep Wayne at home this international break to avoid the ignominy of him being arrested. After all, I don't know how she lives with the shame - of him driving a VW Beetle!

*The Everton fans song for Arteta was to the tune of Scott Joplin's The Entertainer:
Follow, follow, follow
Everton's the team to follow
Cos there's nobody better than Mikel Arteta
He's the best little Spaniard we know

I also liked the Fellaini song they sang, to the tune of Can't Take My Eyes Off You, though this was rather more ribald.

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