Dreadful Everton show how much work is needed with season starting

Well it seems like it’s back to normal and the endless groundhog day that is Everton Football Club continued this afternoon as the Blues meekly surrendered to Manchester United in the club’s last pre-season match.

This was yet another really depressing but so familiar perfromance from this Everton team and hardly a great way to finish pre-season with the Premier League kicking off in seven days time.

If Rafa Benitez cannot strengthen seriously before the month is out it looks like we are in for a very long season, yet again.

I run out of works for how fed up I am with some members of this team. It doesn’t seem to matter who’s in charge or how much he gets paid what tactics he employs or how he tries to motivate them, these players just cannot perform with any consistency or determination.

This was the last pre-season game and a final chance for some of them to press a claim for a starting place in Benitez’s side to take on Southampton in a week’s time. But once again it was lacklustre and indifferent from many of them.

Jordan Pickford returned to the kind of hair-raising error-strewn performances we’ve all seen too often in the past with a unforced error that led to their opponents first goal.

Is there a doppleganger of Pickford that plays for Everton while the real keeper turns out for England?! How can he be so solid and generally reliable for the national team and then as soon as he puts on a Everton shirt he reverts to type.

Alex Iwobi was again frustratingly inconsistent and unable once more to stamp himself on a team desperate for more attacking flair, creativity and quality. He put in one good cross but also missed a good chance and again was unconvincing.

And after a terrible startdue to Pickford’s mistake, the the Blues were totally outclassed in the first half by a United team missing their big offensive summer signing Jadon Sancho.

Trying to see some positives it has to be said that the Toffees were missing arguably their best centre-half at the start in Yerry Mina and their two strikers Richarlison, still on the other side of the world and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who is now injured just as the season is about to begin.

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Also the two new outfield signings both looked reasonably good again and Andros Townsend once more hit the woodwork after doing so when he was out in the US at the Florida Cup. Let’s hope those shots go in when the season starts for real.

So that ends a pre-season in which we haven’t really learnt anything new about the majority of Blues players and one that has confirmed once more how many under-performing individuals there still are at the club.

Can Benitez turn this team around, can anyone? In my darker moments such as immediately after a defeat like this, I’m not sure he or any other coach can do so as the malaise seems to be deep-rooted in this squad.

But then on reflection and attempting to be as optimistic as I can, I sincerely hope that maybe this afternoon was mainly due to a bit of lingering pre-season rustiness (although that’s worrying too!) and the absence of those key players.

However, unless there is significant recruitment we need the few genuinely quality players in this side back in the team at their very best and fit for the whole campaign or it’s going to be a rough ride both for the manager and us long-suffering supporters, again.