Ex Everton striker bags hat-trick as Blues blitzed 5-2

What a ridiculous result that was as Everton somehow contrived to ship five goals at home and lose 5-2 to struggling Watford yesterday.

Only this football club can come up with performances and results like that as an ex-Everton striker Josh King returned to Goodison Park and of course scored three goals to rub salt in the wounds and compund the home fans misery.

If ever you’re a team that needs a result and you’ve got an ex-Blues player in your ranks that is looking for an upturn in form, you can bet Everton will oblige.

I know it might seem a little excessively pessimestic and it’s hard to see things objectively after that sort of result but you feel that if this keeps happening season after season after season, eventually this club will run out of luck and be relegated to the Championship.

Maybe that will happen this season. And, the way I feel at the moment, it might be preferable than having to put up with this endless diet of dashed hopes and expectations. At least then there’d be no hopes of achieving anything to be dashed.

It’s like a groundhog day as at the start of every new campaign we tentatively hope that maybe, just maybe, against all expectations and recent history this team and the latest new manager can somehow find a way to restore the club to something approaching competitiveness.

And every year we end up angry, immensely frustrated and bitterly disappointed yet again as the season falters and ends with a pathetic wimper.

How much more of this sort of thing, which actually feels like a form of mental and pyschological abuse, can Toffees fans be expected to take?

Anyway, getting back to yesterday’s game, I think as many Evertonians do that the manager got it wrong yesterday with his team selection and changes.

This is something he’s generally got right up until now although I would have started with Anthony Gordon aginst West Ham last weekend.

Yesterday, Gordon did start and had a decent enough game but then with a lethargic and tentative Toffees side struggling to contain Watford who were much the more determined and positive, he took off the youngster to replace him with Richarlison.

While obviously it was good to see the Brazilian forward back and he promptly scored on his return, Gordon should have stayed on and Salomon Rondon should have come off.

Rondon has done nothing since joining on deadline day and again he was annoymous against the Hornets begging the question why Richarlison wasn’t a straight swap for him? He also took Demarai Gray off to bring on.. Alex Iwobi and once again he did nothing.

In addition, Benitez preferred Tom Davies to Jean-Philippe Gbamin in midfield and while Davies scored the opener after three minutes to give forlorn hope that it might be a good afternoon, he did precious little else and was outmuscled and outplayed.

Obviously, losing Abdoulaye Doucoure to injury is a huge blow and one that is effectively impossble to replace. But I think Gbmain would have been the better bet as he’s a more naturally athletic and energetic box-to-box player who would have hopefully given the team something like Doucoure’s contribution.

Well, that’s about all I can muster to say on yesterday’s awful events. The question is can this team and this manager recover from it?

Trying to be positive, in a way this was a crazy, bizarre result which can happen to any team, witness Liverpool’s 7-2 crushing by Aston Villa last season. And, had the home team scored a second soon after Davies opener might it have turned out differently?

But the manner of that collapse in the second half is extremely worrying, although to be fair we’ve seen something similar on occasions in recent times but never against such average opposition.

The short lived Benitez honnymoon is certainly over and things could very quickly turn against him even if most of this is not his fault.

After all he didn’t buy the vast majority of these players and had his hands tied in the summer because of all the reckless and failed spending of past Everton managers and Marcel Brands.

If the Toffees don’t bounce back and get a result at Wolves next (a big ask) then can the Spaniard survive long enough to get a chance to improve the squad in January?