Into the Middle of Things

Everton will go into the first international break unbeaten in all competitions, after a drab 1-1 home draw with Huddersfield that will perhaps dampen expectations of what manager Marco Silva could realistically deliver in his debut season.

Following draws away at Wolves and Bournemouth, along with a home victory over a Southampton side that have since looked very decent in winning at Crystal Palace, the point earned against David Wagner’s Yorkshire puddings leaves Silva with the rather ominous distinction of taking the same amount of points from his first four games in charge as Roberto Martinez managed. No one will be complaining if the season turns out as well as 2013/14 did, obviously, but it does still serve as timely reminder to keep an eye out for signs of excessive adjective use or a rapidly receding hairline.

Cliché though it sounds, the opening run of fixtures have, by virtue of a multitude of mitigating circumstances, genuinely led to more questions than answers. The arrival of Marcel Brands from PSV Eindhoven earlier in the summer created a wave of optimism, not least because it heralded the departure of the hugely unpopular Steve Walsh; but while the new broom has been quick to display his efficiency in sweeping out deadwood like Ashley Williams, Cuco Martina, Joel Robles, Muhamed Besic, Sandro Ramirez, Kevin Mirallas and Yannick Bolasie, the decision to introduce a shortened summer transfer window in a World Cup year has meant that fans will have to wait to see evidence of the clear, sustainable incoming transfer policy that such an appointment is designed to produce. As a result, there are still a few stragglers getting a lot more minutes than we might have hoped.

The cost of a pre-season fraught with upheaval has been felt most keenly in defence, where comparisons with Martinez become a bit more disconcerting. I say that partly in jest, as steps have already been taken to reinforce a long-creaking back line with an outlay of more than £50m to bring in both Yerry Mina and Lucas Digne from Barcelona, in addition to a one-year loan deal for Chelsea centre-back Kurt Zouma, but it would still be remiss not to acknowledge that for all the improvements Silva has already made in terms of attacking intent, you can’t help but feel as though he could make life easier for himself by rethinking a zonal marking system which has already seen three goals conceded from corners. Mina’s imminent return from injury should hopefully go a long way towards solving the issue of Everton’s vulnerability to high balls into the box, and maybe even reduce the feelings of trepidation that follow the awarding of a set piece within hoofing distance of Jordan Pickford’s goal. At well over six-foot tall, and having demonstrated his considerable aerial prowess at the World Cup, the Colombian certainly has the physical attributes to help make this a non-issue in future.

You would have to think that the area which Brands will be prioritising in January and beyond must be centre midfield, where Morgan Schneiderlin – who, for all of his general cowardice and unprofessionalism, does deserve credit for saving the day when Mason Holgate inexplicably abandoned his position and allowed Steve Mounie a free run at goal on Saturday – Idrissa Gana Gueye and Tom Davies look woefully ill-equipped to compete against anything other than the worst midfields in the division. Such was the promise with which all three began their respective Everton careers that it would have seemed ludicrous to have said this even twelve months ago, but having now watched them stink the place out over and over again under four different managers, there is simply nothing else for it. None of them would get a sniff at any of the teams expected to finish above the Blues, and they wouldn’t walk into any of the other mid-table sides, either. There is, of course, always the possibility that Andre Gomes could bring some much-needed finesse to the middle of the park, but having read about the Euro 2016 winner’s mental anguish during his time at Barcelona, you do wonder if his loan move is more of a Matteo Ferrari/Lacina Traore-style career break than an attempt at getting back on track.

With Schneiderlin and Gana, it’s easy to just accept that, like most journeyman footballers, they’ll do a limited job for a couple of years and then move on. In the case of Davies, however, it’s a bit more disappointing to see an academy product go from capturing the imagination to being the subject of derision within the space of a few months. It’s a situation which reminds me that there are certain intangibles in football that I've come to accept will only truly make sense if you've played professionally. One of them is the enormous difference between home and away performances, and another is the effect of being an unknown quantity. Davies looks as though he could be the latest in a long line of kids who we've seen come into a Premier League team and have an immediate impact, only to eventually fade to a point where they're forced to drop down a level or two in order to find regular football. I don't know if it's because they fall prey to the meticulous preparation that goes into each game – I imagine it becomes easier to nullify a player as more footage of him becomes available – but for whatever reason the opposition seems to have the measure of them after a handful of meetings.

When he first broke into the team under Ronald Koeman, Davies looked both dynamic and remarkably composed for his age, and that was enough to give him the jump on far more experienced players; but now, eighteen months later, those same opponents are identifying him as a weak link who can be pressed and harried into conceding possession with relative ease. It's a strange situation, albeit a very common one when you take a moment to consider how many teenagers burst onto the scene each year, only to soon find themselves doing the Saturday-Tuesday circuit with Ian Holloway or Steve Cotterill. It could also be worth noting that Davies’s performances really nosedived when he started pinning his hair up like a dinner lady.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though – far from it. Silva was brought here to purge us of the stench of negativity that was first farted out by Koeman, before being cupped into our faces by the swollen, Branston Pickle-stained hand of He Who Must Not Be Named, and with signings such as the electrifying young Brazilian Richarlison – who this week received his first senior international call-up – there’s every reason to believe that he’s going to do just that. Even if, like me, you feel that Gylfi Sigurdsson and Cenk Tosun are a bit too similar in their one-paced endeavour to ever really thrive as a partnership in the long-run, they’re at least serviceable enough to get by with for as long Richarlison and his partner in width, the really excellent Theo Walcott, are providing a serious goal threat from the flanks. Add in the allegedly surpassing talents of another Brazil international in the form of free transfer Bernard (named after his mother’s favourite comedian, Manning), and we can start to think about stuffing Oumar Niasse into that locker he waited so long for.

¡Solo le Mejor!

Leicester and Arsenal

True to the testimonies of our opposite numbers at Newcastle and West Ham, Sam Allardyce is indeed a fate worse than relegation. Whether winning, losing or drawing, his team is serving up the most unpalatable ‘style’ of anti-football that £200m can buy, and he’s talking pure, unadulterated bollocks while they do it.

We can’t say that we weren’t warned.

The funny thing is, Quod Magnum Unus had his tail up earlier in the week, after a home victory over Leicester City moved Everton to within nine points of the magic 40 mark. It was a night that will mostly be remembered for the return of Seamus Coleman, who put in a remarkable shift considering the length of time he had spent out injured, as well as the first and second goals of Theo Walcott’s Everton career. The England winger already looks to have been good business at £20m – especially when compared to many of his exorbitantly priced teammates – evidenced by the frankly embarrassing fact that, by virtue of scoring two goals and providing a single assist in his first two outings, he had already been involved in 11% of Everton’s total league goals for the season.

Despite it being somewhat churlish to focus on the elements of good fortune that played a part in securing a much-needed win against Claude Puel’s in-form Foxes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. The visitors arrived without two of their best players in rested midfielder Vicente Iborra and wantaway attacker Riyad Mahrez – whose latest attempt at escaping King Power’s Landing saw him go the Carlos Tevez route and outright refuse to play – and in truth, they didn’t really look up for it until a Jamie Vardy penalty swung the momentum in their favour with 20 minutes to go. They did see a number of efforts hit the woodwork, with Harry Maguire heading against the crossbar from a corner in the first half, and substitute Kalechi Ihenacho inexplicably hitting both the post and bar under pressure from Jordan Pickford late on, but it was an overall listless performance from a team with designs on playing Europa League football next season.

For his part, Allardyce picked what is presumably his preferred XI for games that he expects to win; and aside from the baffling decision to break up the centre-back pairing of Mason Holgate and Ashley Williams, it made sense. The lineup looked, on paper at least, a little bit narrow and unbalanced, but as the first half developed it became clear that the idea was to have a midfield and frontline where everyone pressed high, leaving Wayne Rooney to collect possession from deep and probe for openings. It wasn’t the prettiest to watch, but given that Oumar Niasse could, and really should, have had the Blues four-nil up by half-time, even the most ardent Brown Envelope Gang basher would have to begrudgingly admit that the steak bake-headed one got his tactics right.

Then came the trip to Arsenal.

Not since David Moyes threw an Anfield derby, only to then go and draw the FA Cup tie that he was resting players for, has there been such an egregious display of small-time thinking from an Everton manager. Saturday’s fixture was one of 13 left to play, and with so many points available – not to mention the advantage of expedient departures from all cup competitions at the earliest opportunity – there was simply no excuse for him to begin the match in damage limitation mode. He went with what basically amounted to a back-seven, despite Michael Keane demonstrating time and again that he doesn’t know how to play in anything other than the flattest of fours, and then had the audacity to level blame at the players when it turned out that sitting deep and inviting pressure from a lineup boasting Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitarayan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang could be a bit of a risk for a team that was recently played off the park by West Brom.

The biggest cause for concern is that, once again, a sizeable majority of the players didn’t look remotely arsed about being humiliated on live television. This mob of farts and mercenaries aren’t exactly bursting with professional pride at the best of times, and so it came as no surprise to see the likes of Morgan Schneiderlin and Yannick Bolasie going through the motions after realising that Allardyce obviously sees them as little more than big club cannon fodder. You would think then, knowing he had hung the players he doesn’t really rate out to dry, that he would have thought better of the hubris he showed in mocking Arsene Wenger’s inability to organise a defence; but no, he couldn’t help himself. He publicly declared that Arsenal don’t know how to defend, and then selected Cuco Martina, who doesn’t know how to defend, and put him right next to Eliaquim Mangala, who is Manchester City’s equivalent of Martina. To top it off, he then responded to the defeat by absolving himself of all blame, on the grounds that he told the lads to just play like Swansea.

£6m a year this fella is on.

Now, thanks to yet another embarrassing result against a side which cost £20m less than the stiffs that Allardyce fielded, there is tremendous pressure going into the weekend encounter with a Crystal Palace team that are no mugs. It was one thing for the crowd to accept that between Ronald Koeman and Steve Walsh’s summer transfer bonanza, and David Unsworth’s stint as caretaker being desperate enough to earn him the nickname John Carvery, the season was pretty much a write-off by autumn; however, expecting them to sit idly by and watch this crew of charlatans inflict further, possibly irreparable, damage is something altogether different. For all the talk of lad bantz and team spirit, Allardyce has already proven to be as divisive and polarising as Koeman and Roberto Martinez were, and that’s after just two months in the job.

Honestly, I’d just sack him now and get Marco Silva in. The club wanted him anyway, and he’ll only end up getting the Southampton job once Mauricio Pellegrino does enough to warrant the bullet. There are obvious concerns surrounding the manner of his departure from Watford, but at the end of the day, it’s incredibly unlikely that either Farhad Moshiri or Bill Kenwright could even name a decent manager working outside of Britain, never mind appoint one.

Everton 1 West Brom 1

‘One of these days these boos are gonna wash all over you.’

- David Unsworth/Ronald Koeman/Roberto Martinez/David Moyes/Walter Smith…

True to the words of his predecessors, the time has come for el Grande Uno to feel the ire of the Woodison faithful; and to be perfectly honest, it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t brought it upon himself. For all the talk of how his infectious personality has endeared him to every player from Jay-Jay Okocha to El-Hadji Diouf down the years, he doesn’t seem too adept at ingratiating himself with the fans of any club that isn’t delighted to be making up the numbers at the world’s most lucrative football party. He was rightly pilloried for his daft remarks following the hiding at Tottenham – where instead of simply acknowledging that the defending wasn’t up to scratch and would require further work on the training ground, he had to go and say that a team which can’t muster a shot on target needs to somehow become more boring – and his claims that there exists no available left-back to come in and displace Cuco Martina become more and more infuriating each time the Birdman takes to the field.

Like many who style themselves as a pragmatist, there is a smugness to Allardyce that serves to invite a degree of scrutiny which he doesn’t think is fair. On occasions where supporters have grown frustrated with his brand of football, he has made the case that it’s all about the bigger picture, and then usually found some incredibly conceited way of stating that he and his carpet-bagging mates have all the Pro Zone stats, and therefore only they are able to see the forest for the trees. This, he expects, will corral the great unwashed into accepting that they must wait until the end of the season before questioning his methods; because after all, football is a results business, where the ends quite often justify even the most unpalatable means. Basically, his attitude is that you hired him because you were sick, and now he’s going to hold your nose and force-feed the medicine that will make you better.

This kind of rhetoric will fly at Everton, to some extent at least, when they are faced with opposition that the fans accept are simply superior to what is widely acknowledged as an expensively assembled mess of a squad. It won’t, however, fool anyone when (I’m) Alan Pardew is rocking up and taking points with a West Brom team sitting 19^th in the Premier League after 24 games. It wasn’t the first time that a lesser side has come away from L4 with something to show for their trouble – far from it – but when a manager who scoffs at the suggestion of putting performance on equal footing with results then fails to put away the dregs of the division at home, you begin to wonder exactly what it is that he’s being paid £6m a-year to do. He’s playing relegation zone football when the club should be weeks removed from worrying about relegation, and at the moment it looks to have the makings of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s reached a stage where the games are barely worth analysing on an individual basis. There are regular changes to personnel, but any potential improvements that this could affect are immediately undermined by a chronic lack of balance, caused by the frankly embarrassing situation at left-back. Martina has been doing his best out there for what feels like decades, and while many have rightly pointed out that fans’ frustration should be aimed at the clowns whose inability to run a scouting network has resulted in his continued presence, it’s almost an accepted fact that nothing will be done about even the most egregious nonsense unless the crowd becomes hostile to the point of it being counter-productive to the players’ morale. Every week we sit and watch as other teams – and not just those with greater resources – utilise full-backs to devastating effect in attacking positions, while Everton settle for a kid who up until recently had never experienced anything above League One, and a journeyman who looks horrified at the prospect of so much as swinging his left leg.

Allardyce has finally deigned to assign Luke Garbutt a squad number, but considering how long that took it seems unlikely that he’ll feature anytime soon. There are positives to be found in the arrivals of Theo Walcott and Cenk Tosun – the former having already registered a vital assist on his debut against West Brom, and the latter at least more than willing to leave one on a defender every chance he gets – but there are other issues that need addressing if they’re to put enough daylight between themselves and the rabble to not be looking over their shoulder come spring. Martina is the most obvious complaint for reasons already stated, but getting Morgan Schneiderlin out of the team, if not the club, should also be considered a matter of urgency. Even with James McCarthy facing a substantial amount of time out of action, and the likes of Tom Davies and Muhamed Besic doing little to convince, there is no good reason for keeping the French phony on the books. His tackle avoidance is Gravesen-level, and his distribution gets worse by the week.

With the visit of Leicester City and a trip to Arsenal on the horizon, the situation could very well get worse before it gets better. Performances have slowly but surely drifted back to where they were under Koeman and Unsworth, and given Allardyce’s belligerent response to recent criticism, there isn’t much chance of him deviating from his tried and trusted strategy of sitting deep and trying to play the percentages. It will, you would hope, be enough to retain the club’s league status, but there’s no way that he can be allowed to continue in the role after David Moyes finally has his revenge at the Olympic Stadium in May.