Everton: review of the season part 1

The 2018-19  Premier League season is over and already beginning to recede into the history books. I thought I would do a review of the campaign analysing how Everton fared.

So let’s look back at what was another up and down season that was very inconsistent and frustrating at times and once again saw Everton fail to win a trophy, but also offer some important hints late in the campaign that the Blues might be turning a corner.

After another summer of upheaval Everton brought in a new manager in Marco Silva and Director of Football as Marcel Brands moved from Holland.

Silva’s appointment was not universally welcomed and there was real uncertainly about the long-term direction of the club.

New signings followed again and Blues fans started the season with cautious hopes for improvement after the awful 2017-18 campaign.

August

The Toffees season kicked off in the midlands as Everton opened with a game at newly promoted Wolverhampton Wanderers.

I went to this match and it was an entertaining and lively game. Everton twice took the lead but couldn’t hold onto that lead and were held to  2-2 draw.

Looking back, this game already underlined what would become themes for the campaign as a whole. Everton showed sporadic signs of real attacking improvement but also erratic defensive lapses as well.

And the rest of the month underlined this as Everton continued to ship goals regularly but also created quite a lot of chances too.

There was a narrow win at home against Southampton and then another 2-2 draw at Bournemouth where the Blues again were leading but were frustratingly pulled back and saw Brazil forward Richarlison sent off.

September

September opened with a dull underwhelming 1-1 draw at home as the Toffees had to come from behind against Huddersfield. Defensive lapses from set-pieces were becoming a recurring feature and were again exploited by the Terriers. But at least Everton maintained an unbeaten start to the season.

That unbeaten start didn’t last long. In their very next game Everton were soundly defeated 1-3 at Goodison Park by West Ham. This match highlighted the increasing problems with the team as a miss-firing attack and some horrible defensive lapses saw the Blues slip to a sobering first league loss.

Everton were struggling with injury problems and that meant the team was constantly being chopped and changed.

So there was plenty of trepidation following that defeat, as the Toffees went to Arsenal to play their Premier League bogey team.

But strangely Everton actually produced a decent performance although they were eventually undone by two second-half goals. It was hard to see it clearly at the time, but there were signs of the improvement against the top sides that Marco Silva had pledged would happen.

The Blues then faced a third consecutive London side as they welcomed struggling Fulham to Goodison. This was a straight forward, comfortable win to finish the month with.

October  

First up this month the Toffees travelled to Leicester City and left the midlands with all three points after a fine away effort highlighted by a superb strike from Gylfi Sigurdsson.

The Blues followed this up with a solid 2-0 win at home to Crystal Palace. Although Roy Hogson’s side defended doggedly eventually Everton broke them down and won the game.

But these last three games were a little bit illusory. A trip to Old Trafford highlighted the continuing defensive weaknesses in the team as United beat the Blues in a controversial game 2-1, courtesy of more individual errors at the back.

November

A good home win against another struggling side, Brighton and Hove Albion, started November.

Everton were back in London for their next game at Chelsea. Yerry Mina made his first start and in an effort to stem the flow of goals that the Blues were conceding, Silva set up to defend and grind out a point, which they did.

It was apparent that the manager wasn’t really sure how to set out his team as the players produced one erratic game after another. The defence was as leaky as the proverbial sieve and there was still no answer to the conundrum about who could play at centre-forward.

However despite all this the Toffees next beat Cardiff 1-0 to round out the month before facing the old enemy Liverpool at Anfield in the season’s first Merseyside derby.

December

As we all remember this was an immensely frustrating game. The Blues produced an excellent overall performance but were undone by a moment of madness right at the death from Jordan Pickford.

But despite how hard that loss was to swallow, these two efforts against top six sides again showed what this Everton team might be able to  deliver when they were focussed and playing to their full potential.

So although the derby loss was very dispiriting, the green shoots of a growing competitiveness seemed to be in evidence.

But the rest of the month would underline just how illusory that was at this time.  Everton’s players seemed to be badly affected by that derby defeat and this was reflected in their slump in form that followed it.

The Toffees were held to successive draws at Goodison. A 1-1 draw against Newcastle was followed by a four goal draw against Watford. In that game against Watford the Blues were perhaps a little lucky to even get a point.

Then came two sobering defeats. First, not surprisingly, at the Etihad to champions Manchester City and then a horrendous 2-6 hammering at home by Tottenham.

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That defeat was a real low point of the season. The Blues were completely overwhelmed by Spurs and all the faults in the team were badly exposed.

Bizarrely Everton followed up that hiding with a 5-1 win at Burnley! Such madly inconsistent form was becoming the hallmark of this side.

As if to underline this inconsistency the Toffees then travelled to the South coast and again turned in an insipid effort as they slumped to yet another defeat at Brighton.

So 2018 finished with the Blues languishing in mid-table and struggling to make any impression on the Premier League. It seemed that little real progress had been made since Silva took over and Everton were as unpredictable and frankly average as the previous season.

The question was would 2019 prove to be any better..?