Everton must decide on identity before spending spree

Once again just as last year Everton face a huge summer in which they simply must bring in the calibre and number of players they need to substantially improve this team. But they need first of all to decide how they want to play before embarking on yet more spending.

Twelve months ago I wrote that the upcoming transfer window was the most important in recent years as Everton prepared for their first window with Carlo Ancelotti as manager. That seems just as true a year on after another disappointing campaign that has in my view left the team not much further forward and with still more questions than answers.

Just under eighteen months ago the Toffees had finally secured the services of the highly decorated and ‘world class’ manager that owner Farhad Moshiri has always craved.

Now he needed to be backed in the market and to be fair largely he was with Ancelotti addressing the Toffees midfield weakness by adding Allan and Abdoulaye Doucoure to bring defensive strength and energy and adding the technical skill and creativity of his favourite Colombian attacker James Rodriguez. He then bought in a young defender of promise; Ben Godfrey.

The overall outcome has been a mixed bag to be honest with Allan and Rodriguez good when fit but both spending long periods out injured and so having less impact than might have been hoped. Doucoure was usually solid and consistent until his late-season injury too.

Godfrey has been a real find and after getting his chance to play as an emergency left-back when Everton adopted a four centre-back defence, he continued to impress with his pace, man-marking ability and determined attitude.

In a sense Godfrey brings us to where I want to be and that’s the upcoming window and what type of player the Blues need much more of – fast, athletic, powerful and even a little cocky.

After this season of weirdly Jeckle and Hyde performances from Everton, which combined some outstandingly professional wins away from home due to fan absence and some clever tactics, with abject results at Goodison Park, it is vitally important the club define how they want to play before embarking on more spending this summer.

The lack of a coherent identity to the team and the shotgun approach to spending under a succession of different managers, has left the club with a squad full of all sorts of ill-matched and underperforming players.

There are too many slow and ageing players like Seamus Coleman and Gylfi Sigurdsson, players who don’t seem to have a clear position or defined roles such as Alex Iwobi and Tom Davies and then finally players who promised something at first when they signed, but have ultimately failed to deliver like Bernard and Andre Gomes.

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This is the result of a lack of a clear strategy and identity to the club’s football for a long time. It also meant of course no clear focus to transfer spending and player recruitment.

To some extent Ancelotti continued this with two older players probably just past their best in the South American duo, an athletic but not technically gifted addition in Doucoure and a quick and powerful youngster Godfrey. Again what exactly was the strategy behind these signings?

It’s obvious with a player like Rodriguez for all his strengths, you can’t play a high-tempo pressing game up front, which for a while it seemed Ancelotti ultimately wanted to do.

Godfrey is the sort of versatile modern footballer the Blues badly need more of in order to play that type of more dynamic game. It seems again that there was a lack of clarity in terms of how the team is designed to play. I’m still not certain how Ancelotti wants his team to play.

And this season due to so many injuries, the consequences of all that uncertainty and inconsistent recruitment for so long has been laid bare. It also resulted in more selection problems and constant tactical change again this campaign.

And it meant that whenever he didn’t have his new first choice players available, Ancelotti didn’t have faith in the remaining players ability to play how he wanted and so resorted to an often crude, defensive, counter-attacking approach. This worked when playing away at teams likely to dominate the ball but was badly exposed at home.

To make proper progress at last Everton have to decide on a clear football identity, make more effort to get shot of the deadwood in the squad (we’ve said that before) and then recruit exactly the right players this summer. They can then build a side with the necessary attributes of pace, power and decent technical ability to turn that identity into an effective team on the pitch.