Everton must find new Moyes

Thinking more about Saturday’s result against Manchester City and the previous week, has me wondering whether to progress, Everton need to unearth a new version of David Moyes.

I’ve written again recently about how I remain unconvinced that Marco Silva is the man to return Everton to a more competitive and successful position.

The result on Saturday while not decisive for the season, only reinforced my unease given the frustrating erraticism of this Toffees team.

Unable to beat Sheffield United after producing another well below par performance and then once again showing some positive signs of renewed interest in the further loss to Manchester City.

There have been constant issues over whether Silva can properly motivate his players, his failure to sort out the continuing inconsistencies in form and deal with the fundamentals of the teams performances like defending set-plays.

It’s a very difficult situation for the club though, not least because sacking him would be messy and expensive and leads to yet another search for a suitable replacement after so many recent managerial upheavals.

Just like the players he is in charge of, Silva is often frustrating and difficult to properly understand and analyse.

There are moments when he looks as though he might have cracked it and seems to have discovered the right personnel, balance and tactics.

One such period was the back-end of last season when the Blues went on a fine run at home and produced undoubtedly their best performances under the Portuguese boss.

However this season, that momentum hasn’t been sustained. This season has certainly not worked out at least yet, as most of us would have hoped when it started back in early August.

Some early tentative hints of progress, which I wrote about, have been swiftly snuffed out by the return of seemingly endemic problems that have plagued the team for so long.

Wildly inconsistent performances week by week, constant difficulties scoring and most damaging of all, conceding soft and very preventable goals.

All this creates real difficulties for Silva as he has now been in charge at Goodison Park for well over a year. After three transfer windows and plenty of money spent, he cannot say that he is saddled with his predecessors squads.

Some people will say, with justification, that less than eighteen months is not enough time to turn around a long-underachieving club like Everton.

However time is short for managers not winning in the Premier League these days. Critically there has to be real tangible signs of progress year on year for a manager to feel secure in this position.

I’ve talked about the constant problem of goals being conceded at set plays, but I also feel another emerging problem is the apparent unwillingness of Silva to adjust his tactics to a key change in personnel.

In this I’m thinking in particular about the consequences for the side of the sale of Idrissa Gueye to PSG.

Since Gana left for the French giants in the summer, Everton have struggled to  come to terms with the loss of the Senegal player.

Gueye was a human defensive dynamo who essentially did the work of two players. His willingness and ability to track runners, tackle all day and constantly win back possession for his team is being missed.

All this work allowed a player like Andre Gomes alongside him to play his natural game as well. He was able to get on the ball run with it and at the opposition defence.

And it meant Silva could carry on playing a 4-2-3-1 formation, which seems for the moment to be his preferred system.

Without Gana, it’s becoming increasing obvious that this isn’t working. Losing Jean-Philippe Gbamin who was bought as his supposed replacement to injury, has also accentuated this.

Furthermore I feel that Gana, because he was so dynamic, enabled the Blues to play with a more studied and slower game overall. This won’t work anymore without him.