Everton are a rudderless ship in serious danger of doom already
Sunday’s 1-0 defeat to Arsenal was a horrendously sobering match that underscored the seriousness of the situation at Everton this season.
This is a theme we’ve heard again and again so it’s nothing new. However, there are worrying signs that things are getting even worse, if that is possible.
Everton lacked fight, direction, energy and attacking nous and were utterly outclassed by an Arsenal side that weren’t anywhere near their best.
Again, we have seen Blues sides perform this badly many times before, season after season. But, it seems to me that even the most basic expectations have gone from this club and it’s players.
The one thing that Toffees supporters used to generally expect at the very least if nothing else, was a genuine determination to fight and compete at home even if they lacked the quality to match the opposition.
Even that though was missing on Sunday and Everton conceded all the momentum to their opponents right from the kick-off.
The midfield was annoymous providing no bite and press to try and win the ball high up and the team resorted to Jordan Pickford lumping long balls forward from the goalmouth.
One telling statistic that underlines the total lack of attacking threat, is that the home team only managed to win a single corner all game long.
Many of the Blues goals recently have come from set-pieces (including February’s winner against Arsenal) and so that lack of opportunities was especially concerning to see.
Even when they got a corner it was just a ball pumped aimlessly into the box that was easy meat for the Gunners defenders and keeper.
This is another example of how the team is appearing to be going backwards all the time under a manager who was supposed to be a set-piece expert.
And then, with the game still nil-nil with the points up for grabs, Dyche decided to take Beto off and replace him with Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Why persist with a formation that was not working and left his starting striker severly isolated? Why not put them together up front and see what happens with a match still to be won?!
Instead, just three minutes later Everton were behind and that was it, game over.
I have said before on many occasions that Dyche has to shake things up and quickly or he and the team will simply run out of time.
He has to take more risks and start re-thinking his tactics, giving us all a sense that there is actually a plan to try and win some football matches and not just avoid defeat all the time.
That might mean moving to a 4-4-2 with Beto and Calvert-Lewin paired up front so they can support each other, and moving James Garner into central midfield to provide some desperately needed forward passing ability.
Or, maybe try 4-3-3 with Dwight McNeil and Arnaut Danjuma or Jack Harrison playing either side of the centre-forward.
If the manager doesn’t do something to change this suffocating sense of inertia and almost total lack of ambition, then the pressure will come for a change in coach, yet again.
But then, who will make that decision with Farhad Moshiri having decided to sell up and leave as soon as possible and the new potential owners facing major hurdles to get their deal over the line?
I am sure there was once a film in which a group of people come across a floating luxury liner with no one apparently on it that was essentially a ghost ship drifting along with no direction towards ultimate doom.
Everton is the footballing equivilent of that ship. A club with all the outward trappings still of it’s past greatness, which is now just a pale shadow of that former self as it seemingly heads for an inevitable relegation.