I'm not sure whether this is a breakthrough for an old dinosaur like me but I have a new favourite football writer who happens to be female - Alyson Rudd who writes in The Times and the Sunday Times. I felt she had trained on in her latest columns - but then I found she had already won sports feature writer of the year in the most recent British Sports journalism awards.
There's no doubt that being female and preferably not white is a big advantage in the current awards environment. But Alyson is always worth reading. Her columns are knowledgeable and perceptive but I also find them very relatable. There is a hint of hero worship in some of her writing about the players. I'm not sure a male football writer would dare publish a column about a female footballer like the one Alyson wrote in February in praise of Everton's Gylfi Sigurdsson. It was a barely concealed valentine*. Alyson recounted that she had been introduced on an Icelandic radio station as England's greatest aficionado of the Iceman. And that back in his Swansea days she interviewed him and let slip that she was naming her next kitten Gylfi ("he looked only moderately embarrassed" she said). She was mocked for predicting that, if Sigurdsson were fit, Iceland could win the 2016 Euros. Then they knocked out England before one half of what she called "cockiness" led to their defeat by France in the quarter finals.
Rudd noted that Sigurdsson had been in danger of being labelled an over-priced luxury at Everton. Over-priced - you bet, £45 mill in 2017, still a club record. I wrote at the time that swapping Barkley for Sigurdsson and loads of money wasn't a great deal. Sure, Everton had little choice but to take Chelsea's miserable £15 million in January 2018 as Barkley was about to enter the last year of his contract and I know he hasn't set many fires alight in the meantime, as well as proving injury prone. Sigurdsson can strike a sweet ball and has an eye for goal, scoring a 50 yard spectacular on his Everton debut against Hajduk Split**. But Barkley is also a good finisher and dead ball striker and is much more dangerous running at defenders with the ball than Sigurdsson.
The puzzle at the time was how Everton would use Sigurdsson. Yes Barkley was on his way out but Everton signed two other players whose best position was also number 10, the others being Rooney and the also very expensive and now long departed Davy Klassen. But Siggy has often been deployed on the left in his career and Everton tended to start him out on the flank early in his spell at Goodison. Indeed, it's not always been clear what his best position is throughout his career.
That seems to have been resolved under Carlo Ancelotti: it's number 10. Leaving the problem that Siggy has never really made the position his own and this season Everton signed golden boot winner James Rodriguez, also a no 10 candidate. James has also often been deployed on the wing and is arguably too lightweight to be deployed at number 10, depending on how the team is set up around him. But the penny that eventually dropped for Ancelotti was that you can't have Sigurdsson and James in the same eleven. Most of us supporters seemed to figure that much quicker than the celebrated coach Ancelotti. Even Ms Rudd noted that it was "painful" watching Everton with them both on the pitch.
James can be frustrating and, as Ancelotti puts it, has quality but not physicality. But every time he plays he catches the eye with at least a few gorgeously struck passes. Sigurdsson has games where he makes such a minimal contribution you forget that he's on the pitch. It's not that he hides; there are days when he just can't seem to get anywhere near the ball.
Alyson's remedy is simple - go with Siggy. Saying she has long held that to get the best out of Sigurdsson he needs to be in charge on the pitch (hmm, sounds like she doesn't just mean on the pitch...) she noted that by mid February Everton had won every game this season in which he had set up or scored a goal. And some of those set ups have been superb. Everton's thrilling 5-4 FA Cup win against Spurs was clinched by a slick turn and gorgeously weighted lofted pass for Bernard to finish, a classic piece of number 10 play from the Iceman, with his "wrong" left foot too. Sigurdsson had a great night, scoring a penalty and assisting three goals. For Rudd, Sigurdsson was in charge, James was injured and not in the squad and "it worked".
The problem with this analysis is that, 4 days later, Everton were desperately poor in losing 2-0 at home to Fulham. Both Sigurdsson and James were in the starting eleven, Everton looked tired and leggy and Sigurdsson, far from being "in charge" had one of his invisible man games.
And while at 6ft 1in he is bigger than James he isn't really more physical. While he was involved in four of Everton's five goals against Spurs he was also culpable for two. For some reason Everton tasked Siggy with marking the Spurs centre back Davinson Sanchez at corners. I think the idea - one which my team quite frequently used - is not to have your best headers marking so they are free to attack the ball, so Sigurdsson's task was just to stop Sanchez getting at the ball. His attempts to do so were utterly pathetic. For the Spurs first he followed Sanchez's smart run put pulled out of making any challenge and just tried to give him a bit of a shove. Nothing like enough of a shove. His attempt at defending Sanchez's second was worse. He decided to stand with his back to the ball, watching and grappling with him. A bit like an American football defender trying to wrap his arms and do everything but actually hold his opponent. Except he was holding him while the ball came in and Sanchez, watching it, was able to get a foot on it. To see the full comedic parody you have to watch the video replay**. Siggy is one of those tall chaps who plays like a he is several inches shorter than his actual height.
But his lay off to Calvert-Lewin for Everton's first that night was sublime and his pass to Bernard for the winner was even better. Then against Fulham - invisible. So Sigurdsson is an enigma, even if Alyson Rudd is smitten.
Anyway, I like Alyson's style of writing and she has produced a string of entertaining columns over the last few months. She was born in Liverpool, raised in Lancashire and is a graduate of LSE. She worked in fashion and as a financial journalist before football took over. She played for Leyton Orient Ladies and is a qualified coach and referee. Her writing is much nearer to both a fan's and a player's viewpoint than most of the time served professional journalists. It makes me realise how much I miss the better written articles from the fanzine era.
And we'll see whether the Iceman cometh for Everton tonight against Crystal Palace. This is the sort of game that has proved a banana skin for Everton in recent months. Not only has the normal home advantage disappeared without fans present, it's become a disadvantage. Since Boxing Day Everton have played seven home league games, winning one, drawing one and losing five. Their away record in that time is the mirror image: played seven, lost one, drawn one, won five. If Everton had done as well at home as away in that period they'd be sitting prettily in third place, sandwiched between Leicester and Man United but with two games in hand on both of them. You may say that's a big "if" but it only needed them to beat three teams in the bottom five (Burnley, Fulham and Newcastle) and one team from a similar standing in the current league table, West Ham.
Once upon a time I would have thought Everton's persistent failure to beat such teams was indicative of a bunch of prima donnas. But I don't level that charge at Sigurdsson or, for that matter, James even though they are players you'd have thought could unlock such teams. I suspect the problem is the team isn't quite good enough yet and they struggle mentally in the games they are expected to win. Against the top teams they can go out and perform, knowing that whatever the result they can still be said to have played well, for example as recently in the 2-0 F A Cup defeat by Manchester City. The pressure of being expected to win and being criticised for any other result, is another matter. Come to think of it, this isn't new: Everton were often the same under Moyes. They prefer to be the underdog. It's about time this psychological hang up was resolved. After all, Sam Allardyce said three years ago that Sigurdsson had struggled to cope with the pressure of playing for Everton and talked of bringing in a sports psychologist to sort out the mental frailties of Siggy and his team mates***.
Still, Everton are fortunate to have (and be able to afford) two playmakers like Sigurdsson and James, even if they aren't perfect and they have to rotate them rather than play them together. After all, some of James's assists this season have also been things of beauty, for example his ball for Richarlison to score at Anfield. If Everton can overcome their inferiority complex at Anfield then surely they can learn how to impose themselves against teams from the bottom end of the table.
Surely....? With not just Sigurdsson and James but Lucas Digne, second in this year's Premier League for assists from full back and with strikers of the quality of Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison Everton's failure against weaker teams is a bit mystifying. But it shouldn't be difficult to solve. Get the ball up the pitch earlier, so that the players named above get more of the ball in the places where they can do damage.
Over to you, Carlo.
* Actually it wasn't concealed. It was only when I checked I realised Alyson Rudd's column was titled If Everton's boss swooned over Sigurdsson like I do they would be serious cup and top-four contenders - and appeared in the Sunday Times on 14 February 2021. Sadly for Alyson, Gylfi married Alexandra Ivarsdottir in 2019
** Sigurdsson's remarkable goal against Hajduk Split: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe7k1sH0BkA The highlights of the 5-4 Spurs game are at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FktBKI-qG9M, Sigurdsson's cringeworthy attempt to prevent Sanchez's second is after 4min 16 seconds
*** Struggling Gylfi Sigurdsson embodies Everton's malaise for Sam Allardyce was in the Guardian , 3 Dec 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/dec/03/sam-allardyce-gylfi-sigurdsson-everton-huddersfield-premier-league. Photo credit: Siggy's knee slide comes from the same article
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