Everton’s promising season is starting to unravel

Cast your mind back to just over a month ago. Everton had beaten Nottingham Forest 3-0 on home turf, picking up their fourth win in five games and climbing to fifth in the league table. 

The Blues had defeated Manchester United away from home for only the second time in 32 years and picked up their first-ever Premier League win over Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium. A long-anticipated return to European football seemed increasingly closer.

There was a sense of rejuvenation and optimism at the club after a great start to the league campaign following the summer rebuild and a move to their new home on the banks of the River Mersey. 

Those dreams and hopes, however, are fading quickly, if they haven’t already. 

Since the first week of December, the Toffees have lost several key players, picked up just one win in seven games, endured bizarre refereeing decisions, struggled massively on the pitch, and on Saturday, any sliver of hope of winning a trophy this season came crashing down after getting knocked out of the FA Cup by Sunderland following an insipid performance and an embarrassing penalty shootout at home.

Everton’s campaign started to go awry following the trip to Stamford Bridge. The Blues lost Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to injury while Iliman Ndiaye and Idrissa Gana Gueye left to join the Senegal national team for Afcon.

Dewsbury-Hall and Ndiaye continue to be the team’s top scorers with four goals each and Gana Gueye, despite not matching the highs of last season, brought experience in the middle.

Everton have also missed Jack Grealish and Michael Keane for a game or two over the festive period and have lost Charly Alcaraz to injury. The squad is stretched woefully thin and David Moyes is having to rely on players who haven’t received many minutes this season and are clearly rusty and lacking chemistry.

Meanwhile, all of the Blues’ existing problems have only been exacerbated. Thierno Barry and Beto aren’t finding the back of the net, the full-backs have offered very little going forward, and there’s been little in the way of chance creation.

While it’s easy and rather convenient to hide behind excuses for some of the poor results, there also needs to be a sense of accountability. It’s not the losses against Chelsea, Arsenal or Brentford that worry the Blues faithful; it’s the inability to beat the likes of Burnley and Wolves, the two lowest-ranked sides in the Premier League.

Even against Sunderland in the FA Cup this weekend, the Blues chased the shadows of their opponents all game long. The hosts were pegged back on home turf, struggling to build up and stitch together five decent passes in a row. There was no cohesion between the midfield and the forward lines, the flanks looked dead, the team’s Number 9 couldn’t win an aerial duel to save his life, and the players’ shoulders were slumped, afraid to show for the ball or make a committed challenge.

Yes, the side is missing nearly half a dozen key players and that context is extremely important, but at the very least, the club and its supporters expect the players to fight for the badge, for a half-decent performance, and for the fact that it’s been three decades since the club last lifted a trophy. Patience is starting to wear thin.

 

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