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.
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