Sunday’s dreadful 4-0 defeat at Villa Park has plunged Everton into a frighteningly quick early season crisis as injury struck again and the team seems to be declining further in form.
I have written before how this season appears to be an almost seamless continuation of the last campaign with all the faults and failings of the side once again on full display and no sign of any tangible improvement.
However, the manner of Sunday’s loss to Villa was so worrying that Everton might even be declining further, if that is possible.
The weekend’s result was a perfect illumination of all that is wrong with this Toffees team.
As I underlined in my match report, the Blues were almost unbelivably defensively inept and once again saw individual errors punished, lacked any real energy and grip in the middle of the pitch, couldn’t of course score a goal and then had fresh injuries to key players.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin having to go off with a freak facial injury in his first start of the season and just as he was getting up to full fitness, represents a perfect encapsulation of this side’s calamitous situation.
As we still wait for any concrete evidence that the club will be signing a striker who can score goals – something that has been needed for eighteen months now – the team faces another long period without the former England centre-forward.
That combination of chronic ineptitude and ill luck has put Everton into what has appeared to be a terminal decline over the last few years and it just goes on and on.
Sunday’s reverse in the Midlands was very concerning as these problems look to be getting worse, while even some of the slender positives that were glimpsed in the last campaign also now seem to have evaporated.
For example the improved away form with a much better level of commitment and willingness to battle and compete robustly thoughout a game, which we saw in the latter weeks of last season, was entirely absent.
And, even players who represented a potential source of hope and optimism for the future appear to have taken a step backwards.
Nathan Patterson is one such example. I have long championed the Scot as the epitome of a modern full-back who along with several other young players could form a nucleus to build around for the longer-term.
The former Rangers player has though had a torrid time of it in the opening two weeks of the season looking very vulnerable against both Fulham and Villa.
That may in part be due to some of Sean Dyche’s tactics which I am beginning to think are increasingly undermining the team’s abiltiy to compete.
He insists on a narrow defensive line which gives a lot of space out wide for Everton’s opponents to exploit and leaves his full-backs badly exposed.
If the Toffees had plenty of pace at the back to cover, that is something that could be overcome, but Everton have very little real speed especially at centre-back.
Midfield too is raising further questions. Amadou Onana has also gone backwards and doesn’t seem able to have anything like the sort of impact on a game he was sporadically doing last season.
Onana’s decline along with Patterson, could be a sort of second-season syndrome. But whatever the reason, the Blues can’t afford to have these talented young players failing so badly when so many of the experienced players are also struggling or out injured too.
So then, what is the solution?
I don’t know that there is one without a big injection of quality talent and that is extremely unlikely to happen given the Toffees’ financial contraints and the length of time it apparently takes to get deals done.
How long will it be before Dyche himself also comes under increasing pressure if results continue to go south?
Everton now face Wolves (who are also pointless) at Goodison Park next weekend in what has already become a huge must-win, six pointer, call it what you like.
Defeat or even just a draw with another poor performance as well, could begin calls for him to go very early in the campaign.
I am not saying that is the solution, but it has been the go-to response by the club on countless occasions in the recent past although they always wait too long to do the inevitable.
It is only two weeks into the new season and already the dice seems cast for another awful, long hard slog to avoid the catastrophe of relegation. If that is so, I don’t think it will ultimately be successful this time round.