Traditionally, end of season awards at football clubs celebrate the highlights of the campaign, with players and managers receiving acclaim from their fellow peers and the fans.
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However, as Everton’s 2014-15 was so sub-par, I have taken it upon myself to make a list of the lowest moments of the season for the Blues in an alternative end of season awards piece.
For all the pessimists out there, and let’s face it, not many Everton fans aren’t, see if you agree with my choices.
Worst Game Of The Season
A basic category to start with, although picking a definitive one is almost impossible.
Everton lost 15 games in the Premier League last season, and there were some that should quickly be placed in the “best forgotten swiftly” category.
Different losses stick with fans for different reasons – early on the 3-2 defeat at home to Crystal Palace left many fans scratching their heads wondering how the Eagles escaped Goodison Park with three points, while the 6-3 demolition at the hands of Chelsea was a defensively inept performance to say the least.
There are too many contenders to mention, but the one that sticks out for this observer was a match that came right in the middle of the Toffees’ worst stage of the campaign, as they struggled for any run of form at the turn of the year.
On New Year’s Day, Roberto Martinez’s men took on relegation strugglers Hull, with the travelling fans pleading for a performance that at least displayed guts and determination, if not real quality.
All of the talk in the week leading up to the match revolved around how the players would fight tooth and nail for the points in the midst of Martinez’s stickiest spell in charge.
None of that came to pass however, as the hosts easily dismantled an Everton side completely bereft of any fight, with former Everton man Nikica Jelavic netting in a 2-0 victory for the Tigers.
Sometimes the backline lets you down, sometimes the midfielders lack energy and intensity and sometimes the forwards struggle to create anything in the final third. This horror show of a game was a mixture of all three – the ultimate nothing performance.
Worst Player Of The Season
This is a horrible one to pick, as these are players that we have come to love and adore in their time playing on the blue half of Merseyside, so to place the tag of worst player of the season on someone almost feels like betrayal.
It is safe to say that there are not many players in the Finch Farm dressing room that can claim they were anywhere near their best this season, but the one player who fell so far below his usual form was Sylvain Distin.
The defender has been a stalwart at the heart of the Toffees’ defence for five years ever since joining from Portsmouth in 2009, but he was the weak link in a distinctly disappointing back four in the first half of 2014-15, before John Stones rightly replaced him at centre-back.
The Frenchman will be on his way in the summer, and it is a shame that his final showings in a blue shirt were probably best forgotten in a hurry.
No one can doubt his incredible service to the Blues since his arrival on Merseyside, but sadly it is the case that he was simply the worst of a bad bunch this season.
It was, however, pleasing to see him granted a final, and not to mention deserved, send off from the Goodison faithful in the last game of the season – a nice touch from Roberto Martinez, despite his side going down 1-0 at the hands of Tottenham.
Worst Signing Of The Season
An easy one to pick, as there is surely only one option.
Samuel Eto’o left almost as soon as he had walked through the door, but he did contribute goals, assists, priceless experience and moments of undoubted quality, so he avoids this unwanted award.
Following the departure of Gerard Deulofeu, who was a massive success on loan from Barcelona last season, Everton needed a speedy wide man who could scare the life out of defenders for 2014-15.
Another loan arrival, this time in the form of Chelsea’s Christian Atsu, was therefore just what the doctor ordered – or so it seemed at the time.
Unlike Deulofeu, Atsu was not rough around the edges – he had Champions League experience in his successful loan spell at Porto in 2013-14 and was easily Ghana’s star man in an impressive World Cup. He had big game pedigree and wasn’t as selfish as Deulofeu.
However, those positive attributes were quickly forgotten as the Ghanaian barely made an appearance for the entire season, while not doing much to impress when he did make it onto the field.
Injuries, a prolonged spell on the subs bench and a chronic lack of self-confidence on the pitch all culminated in Atsu cementing himself as one of Goodison’s forgotten men.
Worst Goal Conceded
There are so many to choose from and a flurry of heart sinking moments when the ball hit the back of Tim Howard’s net instantly come to mind, but there is one that simply sticks out like a sore thumb.
When Roberto Soldado netted the winner in Tottenham’s 2-1 triumph over the Blues at White Hart Lane, it was the under-fire Spaniard’s first goal of the season at that point – it was to be his one and only.
That point summaries the Toffees’ campaign up perfectly, as woefully out-of-form forwards seemed to find Everton wonderfully hospitable opponents, with Soldado, Radamel Falcao and Danny Graham, to name but a few, ended goalscoring droughts against the Blues.
Additionally, that goal was down to one of the many individual errors that plagued the season, with Gareth Barry dwelling on the ball for far too long, allowing Spurs to break and set up Soldado for a welcome goal.
Following the home side’s celebrations, which came right on the stroke of half time as Everton unforgivably threw away an early lead in suicidal fashion, things started going very quickly downhill for Martinez’s men.
The second half at White Hart Line saw the Toffees play with woefully low levels of intensity, despite being a goal down to a supposed top four rival, and that lack of energy was to carry on for the next eleven matches, as Everton won just one match in that time, that coming against a very poor QPR side in an average showing at Goodison Park.
The goal perfectly condensed the misery of the campaign down into one moment and also set the tone for the Blues’ worst run of form in recent memory, and that is why it edges this particular category for me.
Worst Individual Performance Of The Season
Antolin Alcaraz in the second leg of the Europa League last-16 in Kiev? Sylvain Distin in the Capital One Cup loss to Swansea? These are all worthy contenders, but Tim Howard’s woeful outing in the 2-2 draw at home to Leicester pips it.
At the time the Foxes looked like a team nailed on for relegation, and this was a welcome fixture for an Everton side who were worryingly close to the drop zone.
Having taken a hard-earned lead through Steven Naismith, the Blues looked on course for a straightforward, and much-needed three points. However, Howard had other ideas.
To start things off he parried a tame cross from the right perfectly into the path of David Nugent, who gleefully tapped home (another rare goal for a forward against the Blues), before the visitors quickly turned the game completely on its head as the American stopper somehow managed to drop a ridiculously easy catch under no pressure whatsoever, allowing Esteban Cambiasso to guide the ball into an empty net.
In the end the hosts got out of jail through a late own goal from Matthew Upson to keep themselves six points above the bottom three.
However, the manner in which one man threw away two points in just a couple of minutes, against a team that were having nothing but bad luck at the time, left a bitter taste in the mouth.
Had any other keeper in the league been in goal for Everton that day, you sense that the Toffees would have easily claimed the three points, which is why this goes down as the worst individual performance of 2014-15.