Everton 2 Bournemouth 1

‘Why is he running?’ Erwin asked his brother, as the silhouetted figure they were tracking became fainter and fainter, the further he fled into the late summer night. He had ran so far north-east that even the garish amber stripes of his replica football shirt were no longer discernible to the half-pissed eye. ‘He didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘But OK, we have to chase him,’ Ronald replied, his face an unmoving mask of sternness, painted sloppily onto the great monolith that was his head. ‘Because he’s the hero Everton deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we’ll loan him out, because he can take it. Because he’s not Lukaku. He’s a willing runner. A contented rotation option. A bit shite.’

Twelve months later, with the club in disarray, a bit of shite rises.

Yes, Oumar Niasse is back in the fold and back amongst the goals; first sending David Moyes’d Sunderland packing from the Carabao Cup, and then coming off the bench to rescue Ronald Koeman from a home defeat that really would have had the wolves at the door.

Still reeling from Jose Mourinho’s programme notes sending him Fred West, Koeman dismissed suggestions that the midweek victory over Darron ‘Homer’ Gibson and the gang was anything to do with the fact that he picked a balanced team for once, and went straight back to shoehorning one-paced ‘number tens’ into the team for the visit of Nice Guy Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth. Cuco Martina and Leighton Baines returned as full-backs, with Mason Holgate moving inside to partner Ashley Williams in central defence, and Idrissa Gana Gueye and Morgan Schneiderlin were restored to their usual best-seats-in-the-house-view of the attacking midfield malaise, comprised of Wayne Rooney, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Davy Klaassen. Dominic Calvert-Lewin continued up front after an impressive two-goal display against the Black Cats.

The only notable event of a typically dull first half came when Simon Francis - who is very much into MMA, and really hates it when people say that they ‘train UFC’ - decided that he was sick of everyone taking the piss out of him for doing Muay Thai to keep fit in pre-season, and resolved to show once and for all that Dan Gosling and Harry Arter were a pair of lying wankers for telling the lads that he actually just goes to boxercise with his bird. Speaking to a Match of the Day reporter after the game, Francis would tell how out of the corner of his eye he clocked Rooney leaping like a heat camp circuit straggler, and, remembering what a little fart he looked when Phil Bardsley World Starred him in his own kitchen, that he knew then that it was finally time to demonstrate his formidable knowledge of the art of eight limbs.

Rooney was understandably incensed by a lack of action from referee Martin Atkinson, and even moreso at the assistants who failed to spot a blow that left him looking like Vitali Klitschko at the end of his war with Lennox Lewis. Justice would not be denied, however, as the universe decreed that Francis’ assault would in fact serve as the impetus for a substitution that would turn the game on its head, following an early second half goal from Josh King that looked to have sent the poor old Toffees hurtling headlong towards another shameful defeat. Taking the ball from Charlie Daniels, who was a constant threat out on the left, King strolled past Martina with alarming ease, sent Holgate sliding on his arse like a kid on a function room dance floor, and produced a finish that left Jordan Pickford with no chance. The goal sparked a chaotic 20 minutes or so that saw Niasse and Tom Davies replace Rooney and Klaassen, and Pickford forced to keep Everton in the game with an excellent save from Jermaine Defoe as the visitors poured forward in search of a contest-killing second.

Then, with the manager’s prospects looking as bleak as they have at any stage during his short but eventful tenure, Davies picked up where he left off on Wednesday by driving forward from midfield and picking out Niasse with a sublime through-ball that was duly dispatched beyond the flailing arms of Asmir Begovic, drawing the Blues level against the run of play. All joking aside, it was a moment that again reinforced the obvious quality of Davies - something that should have been clear to Koeman when his promotion to the first team proved to be the catalyst for last season’s upturn in form - and also made a mockery of the idea that there was simply no point in pursuing any other strikers after Olivier Giroud’s supposed U-turn over a move to Goodison.

With the crowd now suitably geed up, momentum shifted in the home side’s favour, and true to their reputation as a team of questionable mental fortitude, the travelling Cherries immediately saw their arses and retreated. Defoe had already been withdrawn when Niasse struck on 77 minutes, and King wasn’t far behind as Howe attempted to shut up shop and take a point. Taken at face value it looked a sensible move, but we, as former long-suffering observers of David Moyes, knew that it would do nothing but invite the kind of pressure that has resulted in many a disgruntled Evertonian shoving copious amounts of cocaine up his nose on a four-hour coach ride home from Anywhere, UK.

‘We’ve had eight nine 10 11 years of this now, lad. He can fuck off.’

The winning goal came just five minutes after the equaliser, with more good work from Davies leading to a blocked shot and a bout of slapstick defending that eventually ended with Niasse forcing the ball across the line, Kev Campbell in a scramble-style. A memorable moment to say the least.

Just a shame that he isn’t registered for Thursday.

Manchester United 4 Everton 0

For the second consecutive season, Ashley Williams was forced to take drastic action at Old Trafford when his over 1.5 goals bet looked all but bust.

Refreshed following a midweek rest, the Wales international put in a performance against former teammate Romelu Lukaku that for a long spell was reminiscent of their meeting in a Euro 2016 quarter-final, when the Belgian was kept securely in Williams' pocket for the full 90 minutes, plus added time. Times change, however, and 15 months later the one-time colossus, who virtually every pundit used to point to as the throwback, no-nonsense defender that could win Arsenal the title, has morphed into a tubby oaf with a stupid David Haye haircut, whose concentration deserts him at all the wrong moments.

‘Once Everton has touched you…’

Ronald Koeman reverted to his preferred lineup for trying to achieve a respectable defeat, bringing Williams and Cuco Martina in to make up a back five. Morgan Schneiderlin and Idrissa Gana Gueye stood just far enough in front of the defence to make it impossible to prove in a court of a law that it was actually a back seven, while Tom Davies and Gylfi Sigurdsson did their best to both cover the full-backs and offer support to lone striker Wayne Rooney. It was an unabashed attempt at ‘parking the bus’ and frustrating a Manchester United side that has made a strong start to the season, which is probably why the players went into panic mode when Antonio Valencia opened the scoring with a belter of a first-time strike after just four minutes.

Another defeat in the manner of those suffered against Tottenham Hotspur and Atalanta looked to be very much on the cards in the minutes following Valencia’s goal, but once the fear of realising that they were effectively set up to defend a deficit eventually subsided, the Blues played their way into the game a bit, and even fashioned a genuine chance when Martina broke down the right flank and centred for Rooney, who should have at least hit the target. Davies’ selection had looked a classic Moyes stitch-up job at first - picking a kid out of position in a game that you know you won’t win, and then dropping him for six months after he gets hooked at half-time - but the ket wig Kaka did a fine job of linking with Rooney and Sigurdsson, while also working back and preventing Martina from being exposed by the attack-minded combination of Ashley Young and Marcus Rashford. The increasingly unconvincing Michael Keane - who definitely doesn’t know how to play as one of three centre-halves - did his best to gift Lukaku a goal with a terrible pass across his own line, but other than that it was mostly a case of letting United knock the ball around between themselves without really creating much of note. It was hardly anything special, but compared with Thursday it was something.

Everton came out for the second-half looking as though 40 minutes without conceding had done their confidence the world of good, as Rooney forced another chance when he rode Eric Bailly’s challenge, only to shoot straight at David de Gea when he again could have done better. United started to get sloppy in possession, with Williams, who appeared to be particularly motivated by his obvious dislike for Lukaku, doing a great job of making their battle the kind of physical encounter that the striker doesn’t really have much of a stomach for. Thierry Henry mentioned before kick-off that Lukaku had been looking forward to facing his former employers, due to him taking offence at fans of such a lowly club having the audacity to point out the flaws in his game; and those comments made it all the more enjoyable when Lukaku fluffed the one on one which came from Keane’s aforementioned error, and despite his current form juxtaposing so unflatteringly with Everton’s, it’s nice not to have such an insufferable blurt doling out unsolicited soundbites about himself all the time. It also came as no surprise to see that he’s taken over Rio Ferdinand’s role of knobhead who runs and jumps on top of everyone while they’re celebrating.

Lukaku would have the last laugh, of course, when this season’s motif of following up a let-off by doing the exact same thing was repeated yet again. The warning came when Jordan Pickford got too cocky with his usually excellent distribution and passed the ball straight to Juan Mata, who drew a foul from Williams and then hit the post with the subsequent free kick. Not satisfied that this was definitely a sign that they should stop arsing around at the back before they get caught out, Williams needlessly gave the ball away under no pressure, allowing Henrikh Mkhitaryan to put the game to bed on 83 minutes. This was immediately followed by ten minutes of complete farce, where a poor free kick by Lukaku caused a scramble that he inevitably scored from, and then substitute Anthony Martial converted a penalty that he himself won by dribbling through the Everton defence until Schneiderlin stopped him with a blatant handball. So it goes.

Grim as things are at the moment, it’s more than likely that this is simply a standard run of poor results - think the ten games without a win, or whatever it was last year - that will turn around as the fixtures get easier. It would, however, be great to hear someone explain the thinking behind the summer recruitment, when they presumably knew well in advance that Rooney would be coming in, and yet made no effort to target players that could complement his strengths or compensate for his weaknesses. Rooney hasn’t, as I feared, taken the piss with his performances on the pitch, but there’s little point in having him here on top money if he’s just going to labour as the focal point of an attack filled with players that are as one-paced as he is. There’s little chance of Koeman’s job coming under serious threat unless it transpires that these recent results are harbingers of a relegation fight, but you would surely think that the same couldn’t be said for Steve Walsh, whose work as director of football appears questionable at best. 

With the next four games at home, the outlook should be much brighter come the end of the month; but even if that ends up being the case, it seems difficult to set any realistic, worthwhile targets. Qualifying for Europe through the league is almost certainly going to be a non-starter with this team, and unless something drastic happens in the January transfer window, the fact that they are incapable of winning away from home makes any sort of meaningful cup progress look equally implausible.

Shite.

Atalanta 3 Everton 0

It just gets worse.

After the usual pre-game talk of pressing as a unit and finding a response to a dreadful run of form, Ronald Trump was again made to look like a blustering idiot by his players, as Everton began their first Europa League campaign since 2014/15 with a 3-0 hammering away at Italian minnows Atalanta.

I was lucky enough to miss the opening 10 minutes, but if the subsequent 70 were anything to go by it was yet another case of a scoreline that was as flattering as it was comprehensive. Koeman stuck with the same 4-2-3-1 formation that yielded nothing at home to Tottenham Hotspur last weekend, with Mason Holgate and Phil Jagielka replacing Cuco Martina and Ashley Williams in defence, and Muhamed Besic, Nikola Vlasic and Dominic Calvert-Lewin coming in for Idrissa Gana Gueye, Davy Klaassen and Sandro Ramirez respectively. Maarten Stekelenburg starting ahead of Jordan Pickford was perhaps the most eyebrow-raising change, but to be fair to the oft-maligned Dutchman, he was one of the better performers on the night.

The hosts took the lead around the midway point of the first half, when one of those weird set piece defending routines that seem to backfire on a number of teams every week only went and backfired. Jagielka had no time to react when an in-swinging corner struck his hip and deflected towards the undefended back post, where Andrea Masiello was being played onside thanks to the decision to have Leighton Baines marking the front. It was poor organisation by any standard, but what made it particularly disconcerting was the fact that, much like the Dele Alli chance that preceded Spurs’ third goal on Saturday, Everton had just moments earlier been given a reprieve when Stekelenburg saved well from the same player. As President George W. Bush so eloquently put it, ‘fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… you can’t fool me twice!’

In keeping with the failure to answer the manager’s repeated calls for a meaningful response following dire showings at Stamford Bridge and again in the aforementioned Spurs game, the goal did nothing to illicit any sort of reaction from the players, who seem to have been constantly under the cosh since Kyle Walker’s sending off in the draw with Manchester City. The home side, playing their first European fixture in 26 years, had the look of a team that smelled blood, as they continued to bite into challenges and move the ball with conviction; and so it came as no surprise when Argentinian playmaker Alejandro Gomez doubled the advantage with a superbly curled strike on 41 minutes. It was quite funny when, in his post-match interview, Koeman mentioned showing his players eight (!) clips of the Atalanta captain cutting inside onto his right foot, as if to say that Farhad Moshiri is lucky not to be expecting an overtime sheet and an expenses invoice on Monday morning.

‘But OK, that’s data roaming charges.’

They say it’s the hope that kills you, so I suppose we should be grateful to Atalanta for sparing us 15 minutes in the half-time hospice by euthanising the game on the cusp of the break. Andrea Petagna, who was an absolute handful up front, reminded the travelling support of what a striker looks like when he collected the ball in Everton’s half, held it up for a few seconds and then centred for the onrushing Bryan Cristante to take ball in his stride and finish from close range. The second half followed much the same pattern, with Petagna hitting the bar after smart work from former Middlesbrough midfielder Marten de Roon, along with a number of missed half-chances that the Italians were never in danger of regretting. The three changes made between the 66th and 76th minutes were barely more than token gestures to the fans that made the journey, with Etrit Berisha’s goal never coming under serious threat until Everton managed to force a couple of corners in the dying moments.

After seeing his defence dominated by Alvaro Morata, Harry Kane and now Petagna, Koeman’s failure to land a centre-forward in the summer has become the pundits’ talking point of choice; so with that in mind, Old Fat Head must be dreading the inevitable headlines when he renews acquaintances with Romelu Lukaku at the weekend. The Belgian has made a flying start at Old Trafford, and such is his proclivity for padding his record against the dregs of the league, you wouldn’t bet against him adding a few to his tally when this struggling Everton side rocks up on Sunday. Still, the sale of Lukaku remains something of a cheap excuse, as while he was undoubtedly the team’s primary source of goals, he contributed very little off the ball, and tended to go missing for long periods of games against the better sides. If it were a case of Everton playing well without finding the net, then yes, it would be fair to point to his departure as being chiefly responsible. However, with nine competitive matches played, the issues appear to go much deeper than a simple lack of a goalscorer.

You would think that, given time, Wayne Rooney, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Klaassen will find a way to complement one another; but even that won’t be enough to compensate for shortage of pace across the board - one that arguably represents an unassailable obstacle in today’s Premier League. On paper the squad looks adequate, but in reality its depth comes from names who the manager has little to no interest in utilising - Lennon, McCarthy, Mirallas, Lookman, Robles, Niasse - which leaves him attempting to select a balanced team from clutches of players that generally occupy the same space on the pitch. A recruitment drive doesn’t need to cost £150m as long as it makes sense, which is why there’s no reason to have multiple central playmakers but no out-and-out striker beyond Calvert-Lewin, who is 20.

It’s far too early to be talking about a manager under pressure, but at the same time, I’m sure the board are relieved to have bucked the trend of rewarding a promising first season with a lucrative new contract last summer.

Everton 0 Tottenham 3

Everton were pretty much humiliated by a Tottenham Hotspur side that won’t collect an easier three points this season.

Ronald Koeman responded to the chastening defeat at Stamford Bridge a fortnight ago by switching to a back-four, with Cuco ‘B.Ware’ Martina coming in at right-back, and Phil Jagielka dropping to the bench. Morgan Schneiderlin and Idrissa Gana Gueye continued to offer passive resistance in front of centre-backs Michael Keane and Ashley Williams, with Gylfi Sigurdsson on the left of midfield, and both Wayne Rooney and Davy Klaassen operating in the same space behind lone forward Sandro Ramirez. There was no right-sided midfielder.

Following an international break which began with the failure to bring in a much-needed striker before the transfer deadline passed, and ended with the fallout of the tabloid bonanza that was Rooney’s latest off-field indiscretion, it seems fair to say that the club has an air of being in something of a malaise. Even before Rooney decided to make a mockery of the idea that paying him £150k a-week to impart the secrets of living la vida Ricky Hatton to the under-23s represented a wise investment, there was a worry that Farhad Moshiri and the gang were resting on their laurels after a proactive start to the summer; and judging by the four league games that have been played so far, those concerns look to be valid.

As everyone knows, sending out a player who has long been searching for a drought-ending or milestone-reaching goal to face Everton is tantamount to match-fixing, and so it came as no surprise when Harry Kane scored a goal that was both his first of the season and 100th in a Tottenham shirt. It came from a deep cross that Jordan Pickford made a Wright, Richard hash of tracking, and left the  young goalkeeper looking even redder-faced than usual as it sailed over his head and nestled just inside the far post. Embarrassing though it was, Pickford’s error will be the least of Koeman’s worries when he reviews the footage of Kane’s strike - the real issue being that the game was no longer a competitive affair after a goal which came less than 30 minutes in.

The hour following a very fortunate and forgivable opener was reminiscent of the worst days of the previous three managers, as Mauricio Pochettino’s men breached the blue defensive line at will. Martina, who is hapless at the best of times, was left totally isolated by an apparent refusal on the parts of Rooney and Klaassen to cover the right side - something that, incredibly, was still not addressed by a double substitution at half-time. Williams’ attempts at getting physical with Kane were nothing short of pathetic, and neither he nor his partner Keane appeared to have prepared for the possibility that Kane or Dele Alli might run around a bit.

It was such an all round insipid display that virtually everyone could make a case for shifting the blame onto someone else. For example, Leighton Baines had one of the worst showings of his Everton career, failing time and time again to deal with balls knocked in behind, but then that’s not to say that he and the rest of the improv troupe at the back couldn’t reasonably point the finger at Schneiderlin and Gueye, whose inability to track runners was the stuff of 20 a-day, ale house league fatties. Meanwhile, N’Golo Can’t-e and Jean Collins could themselves relate their failure to cope with Christian Eriksen and Moussa Sissoko - who is basically their Oumar Niasse - to a complete lack of an out ball up front or out wide, making it impossible to relieve the pressure that Tottenham were exerting on them.

Further up the pitch, Sigurdsson could be forgiven for wondering why Everton saw fit to spend upwards of £45m to pry him out of Swansea when they already had two brand new players to shoehorn into his position; and Ramirez must be wondering why he’s getting booted up the arse up front when there’s literally no one out on the right, where you would think that he’d be much better suited to playing while he finds his feet in a more physical league. At the centre of all of this confusion is Koeman, who has become almost pathological in his insistence on using Dominic Calvert-Lewin as anything other than a centre-forward, despite a performance away at City which showed exactly why the manager was right to persist with integrating him into the first team last season. It’s all very strange.

Despite Eriksen putting the visitors two-up before the break, you got the feeling that there would at least be a token attempt at salvaging a draw when Alli missed a sitter on the stroke of half-time, which would undoubtedly have killed the game as a contest. That miss proved to be the briefest of respites, however, as Martina followed a slapstick air-clearance in the buildup to Eriksen’s goal by losing Kane for his second and Tottenham’s third, just 49 seconds after the restart. It was from then that the match truly descended into farce, with Everton standing shell shocked while their opponents conducted what was effectively a training session for the benefit of their travelling support. In short, they spent the next 45-plus minutes taking the piss.

With the Europa League campaign getting under way on Thursday, you would hope that Koeman will take the opportunity to split sections of the squad that don’t really need to be on the pitch at the same time. Klaassen and Ramirez could, in previous years, have turned out to be disastrous signings that simply never settle; but with at least six extra games to be played at a tempo more akin to what they were used to in Holland and Spain, there’s room for them to continue gelling with their new teammates without being exposed to the physical elements of league football that appear beyond them for the time being. Klaassen in particular looks in desperate need of a confidence-boosting run out.

Don’t even stop to look at the sunglasses in Duty Free, Wayne.