Signs Everton are progressing
With the Premier League taking its first international break of the campaign, I thought it would be a good moment to see whether there are concrete signs Everton are making tangible progress from last season.
As they entered the 2018-19 season, Everton were again in a period of transition having brought in their third manager in two years and a new Director of Football, with yet another batch of player signings as well.
The Toffees had added Bernard, Richarlison, Lucas Digne, Yerry Mina, Andre Gomes and Kurt Zouma to the squad last summer.
Inevitably after so much upheaval, it was a very erratic start on the pitch with three draws and a win against Southampton in the first four matches.
Although Everton were scoring goals regularly, the Blues defending was under heavy scrutiny as the side kept on leaking goals especially from set-pieces.
This problem was threatening to undermine the still relatively bright start the team seemed to have made in those early games. This problem re-surfaced again on Sunday when despite their win against Wolves, the Blues showed some worrying defensive lapses, similar to last season.
So overall the Toffees start to last season was not much worse than this campaign, which has comprised two wins, a draw and a defeat. So Everton now have 7 points as opposed to 5 last time round.
And actually last campaign the Blues were still unbeaten at this stage, although that was to end abruptly with a chastening 1-3 home defeat to West Ham in their next game.
Again, just like last summer, Everton have again brought in a number of new faces who are attempting to adapt to a new team and for some of course, a new league and country.
And just as a year ago, this season started in a stuttering fashion with a tepid performance in a 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace in the Blues opening game. And this was followed up with a narrow and unconvincing victory over Watford in their first home game.
After that came that awful performance at Aston Villa, which saw the Toffees slide to a 2-0 loss to arrest any early optimism among Evertonians.
But after a topsy-turvy mid-week Carabao Cup win at Lincoln City, the Blues last match saw them win that five goal game at Goodison Park on Sunday.
So there is statistical evidence that Everton have improved from last season. But in addition I also think there is anecdotal evidence too that the team is developing and getting better.
There was a step change in the quality of the Toffees attacking play last weekend when Evertonians got to see the players signed in the summer.
Alex Iwobi and Moise Kean came into the team after showing what they could offer at Lincoln City. Their energy, power and creativity transformed the Blues attack and established players like Richarlison and Gylfi Sigurdsson also raised their game considerably.
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Also importantly the Toffees managed to recover after Wolves equalised, and managed to go back ahead after being pegged back to 2-2 with just a quarter of an hour to go.
There was an almost instant reaction and this led not only to Richarlison’s eventual winner, but also to several other great chances. In the end the Blues could have won by four or five goals.
This is important as one of Everton’s weaknesses last season was their chronic inability to recover from a position where they either leading and were then pegged back, or had to come from behind to win.
It’s obviously very early days in this current season, but we can only hope that these trends continue and develop when the Premier League returns.