Everton have slipped a little from their highest ranking of 5th in the Premier League Table, achieved through a fourth win in five games after the defeat of Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Other results meant they have since dropped down to 7th by the end of Matchweek 15 but the stellar set of wins (marred only by the shocking home defeat to Newcastle Utd) have helped to make many of the statistics look good as we head into the busy Christmas period.
And all this was accomplished with a dwindling squad impacted by injuries and suspensions; at least the suspensions are over for the next game at Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon, when Idrissa Gana Gueye and Tim Iroegbunam will be available for selection by David Moyes.
The key player behind it has been Keirnan Dewsbury-Hall, whose contribution to games has reached new heights after he scored that brilliant first goal for Everton in the win at Wolves. We still wait to see if that has earned him the Premier League’s Player of the Month award for November.
A key feature of the game this weekend will be how he is received by the home crowd, and how much, if at all, a return to Stamford Bridge affects his play.
Jack Grealish has continued to create loads of chances — 26 in total — and managed to score a key goal in the win at Bournemouth, when he actually took a rare shot at goal. But his play remains conservative when it comes to shooting himself, although he has been coming inside a lot more, and even switching wings, as well as doing vital work supporting the defence that we know is so important to the Everton manager.
There’s been lots of talk about Harrison Armstrong returning but it seems premature, assuming Everton cannot ask for his season-long loan to be cut short at least before the transfer window opens on 1 January. If he could have been recalled earlier, wouldn’t that have been considered when Merlin Röhl was removed from the playing squad with a hernia problem?
The German has managed just four appearances off the bench, averaging 23 minutes, after succumbing to a hip injury soon after he signed on loan at the beginning of September.
Tyler Dibling is still not being trusted with any meaningful game time after clocking up a paltry 4 minutes at the end of the Forest game, and perhaps we can expect this to continue during Afcon, when he will not be the natural replacement for Iliman Ndiaye, with Alcaraz favoured to partner Grealish and Dewsbury-Hall in Everton’s attack.
The old adage: “If it ain’t broke…” can be justly employed by Moyes up to the point when his selection options are reduced by the absence of Ndiaye and Gueye in the coming weeks, so it will of course be crucial to see how he and the team copes. But the next test is at Stamford Bridge before he needs to worry unduly about such things.