Prince Rupert's Tower
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Everton 1 Wolves 3: Blues lose again at home

By Matt Townsend

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 02: Leander Dendoncker of Wolverhampton Wanderers celebrates after scoring his team's third goal during the Premier League match between Everton FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Goodison Park on February 2, 2019 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 02: Leander Dendoncker of Wolverhampton Wanderers celebrates after scoring his team's third goal during the Premier League match between Everton FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Goodison Park on February 2, 2019 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images) /
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Everton lost at home again yesterday after going down to a deserved 1-3 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers at Goodison Park. So what can we say after this latest dreadful effort from the Toffees?

Where de we start. Once again Everton were simply awful. Defensively inept, lacking in urgency, and without any real creativity or incisiveness in attack. There really is nothing else to say about that game.

But I’m going to say more. I don’t understand how supposedly talented professional players can be so inconsistent and unreliable and turn in such lacklustre performances so often.

Last week Everton travelled to Huddersfield Town and managed to grind out a 1-0 win. It hardly set pulses racing but at least it hinted that this group could dig in and get a result without playing well.

What was needed was a repeat of that kind of determined effort to ensure that the Toffees got something, (preferably of course a win), from this home game yesterday.

When your attack is misfiring and you’re struggling to score goals you’ve got to be strong in defence, awkward to play and hard to beat. But instead the Blues were outplayed and outfought by Wolves who could have won even more convincingly in the end.

Wolves are a decent side and they have shown they are very comfortable in the Premier League. In fact if you didn’t know where these two teams had spent last season you would have thought that it was Everton who were the newly promoted side.

I know I sound like a broken record but we keep having these games and I keep asking, (as I’m sure many Everton fans do), what can we do to change things for the better?

This is yet another lost season with the Toffees out of both domestic cups and looking a million miles away from European qualification in the league.

In fact I’d be surprised if the Blues finished in the top half of the table given these kind of performances. This is especially more likely if you look at some of the sides’ upcoming fixtures, most of them at home.

Everton play Manchester City at home on Wednesday, then have two must-win games at Watford and Cardiff, followed by a visit to Goodison by league leaders Liverpool.

After that there are more, (theoretically), winnable matches at Newcastle and West Ham with a game at home to Chelsea sandwiched between them.

The Toffees away form has usually been as dreadful as their recent home form and so it’s frankly hard to see where the points are going to come from over the next few months. I think it’s quite possible Everton could be back in the thick of the relegation places in another four weeks time.

And where does all this leave Marco Silva? He looked a drained and disappointed man yesterday. In the battle of the Portuguese coaches he was thoroughly outshone by his compatriot.

I wasn’t convinced Silva was the right man to take over last summer. But I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially when it was clear he was seemingly Farhad Moshiri’s only target.

The Toffees don’t even seem to have any structure to their game anymore. Gone is the pressing and adventure of earlier in the season and back has come the error-strewn defending of those first few weeks.

So although simply changing the manager isn’t always the answer, I don’t see how Silva can limp through the rest of the season like this. For whatever reason he doesn’t seem able to lift or inspire these players and is unable to address the fundamental weaknesses of the team.

Yet again for the umpteenth time this campaign the Toffees conceded from a set-piece against Wolves. How many of these goals do Everton have to let in before the coaching staff does something to about it!

Defending corners and free-kicks is crucial in the Premier League. Everton seem to be one of the worst sides around in this respect. When you are struggling for form and confidence you have to do the basics well.

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I know this will sound like a negative response to some and a repeat of last season and the Sam Allardyce era.

I’m not suggesting a return to ten men in defence or primitive long-ball tactics is the answer, (although Moyes football was a little more sophisticated than that), but the Blues simply have to stop conceding so many preventable goals.

We all want to see exciting, attacking football but it needs a solid foundation too, just look at Manchester United now under Ole Gunnar Solsksjaer. They are playing better attacking stuff but with a stronger defence.

I don’t know whether Moyes would come back. But without an established striker and with an erratic, spluttering attack, the Toffees have to become harder to beat to give themselves any chance of winning football matches.