A Time for Worship

The festive period has come and gone; and with it, the honeymoon period of Everton’s latest marriage of convenience has given way to abject familiarity.

In the month or so since the Mersey minnows had the audacity to rock up in front of Big Stand and refuse to simply let their esteemed hosts win, the frantic fixture schedule has provided a large enough sample size to afford Evertonians a comprehensive crash course on all things Sam Allardyce. The ‘new manager bounce’ continued, in terms of results at least, all through December, beginning with a first away win since Vietnam up at St James’ Park, which was followed by a solid if unspectacular home victory over Swansea. Fans’ enthusiasm then started to wane a little bit after unabashedly dull displays in a pair of goalless draws against Chelsea and West Brom, before it was back to working out exactly how long Big Sam’s big contract has left to run in the wake of a pitiful defeat at Nice Guy Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth.

It’s sixteen months, by the way.

Much like Ronald Koeman in his first season, Allardyce will be glad that he was given the opportunity to get a few points on the board early in his reign, as recent weeks have seen this Everton team found wanting in the face of stiff opposition once again. Playing a Manchester United side that hasn’t been out of the top four all season was obviously going to be difficult, but you still expect to muster a shot on target – especially under the lights at Goodison. The game served as yet another stark reminder that while Wayne Rooney will look good against any Fabianists that simply want to camp on the edge of their own box and wait for the Blues to do something stupid, he doesn’t actually know how to play centre midfield, and will always end up looking like an idiot when asked to compete against serious outfits that mean to compete all over the park. Also of note was the return of Yannick Bolasie to the starting lineup, just over twelve months after Anthony Martial put him on the weights in last season’s corresponding fixture. The Congo international isn’t to everyone’s taste – certainly not mine – but it appears as though his wild, unpredictable style is very much suited to Allardyce’s gravy-soaked palate.

Having said all that, it’s hardly time to go full Palermo and ask any available managers to send their CVs to Jim White. It bears repeating that this lot were well and truly Championship-bound under the respective stewardship of both Koeman and Coach Rhinoceros, and would have almost certainly been on the end of a scoreline that would make Roberto Martinez blush in one or both of the recent Anfield derbies had either of those two remained in charge. The FA Cup defeat was obviously frustrating, but it was still a marked improvement on the league performance, doing enough to at least test the conviction of those of us who have come away from past beatings insisting that all we want to see is a willingness to stand up and show some modicum of fight. Despite the embarrassing ramblings of newly outed lunatic Farhad Moshiri, who thought it wise to compare Liverpool’s ‘Fab Four’ to Everton’s own musical quartet – featuring Rooney as Vegas era Elvis, and Bolasie as the Tupac hologram – this remains an extremely limited group of players, assembled with such a lack of care that Leighton Baines’ injury has left the manager unable to field a left-footed player; and so it’s probably unreasonable to expect Allardyce to have achieved much more than mid-table mediocrity comes the season’s end.

With the team restored to something approaching the Moyes average of being able to beat the dross of the league at home, and at least making a show out of mostly losing on the road, the manager’s future could well depend on how successfully he traverses this January transfer window. There have already been significant, if extremely inevitable, departures in the form of Ross Barkley’s £15m transfer to Chelsea, and a loan deal which saw Kevin Mirallas finally going back from whence he came; meanwhile, German-born Turkey striker Cenk Tosun’s £25m move from Besiktas represents the first of hopefully several new arrivals. Barkley and Mirallas were both good value during their spells here, with the former showing glimpses of genuine greatness after breaking into the first team as a teenager under Martinez, and the latter always carrying a goal threat despite never really recapturing the form he showed before an embarrassing penalty debacle in January 2015.

Whereas it’s easy to spot exactly where Mirallas’ Everton career began its downward trajectory, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever discover the truth behind Barkley’s decision to basically do a Steve McManaman on the club that had been his home since childhood. For all of his obvious attributes as a footballer, something about the mercurial midfielder has rubbed virtually every club and international manager he’s ever had the wrong way; and so it does make you wonder why it’s only really Martinez and his inexhaustible supply of empty platitudes that has ever been able to coax a consistent response out of him. From a fan perspective, it’s always sad to see a quality player leave – especially one who grew up before our eyes as an academy graduate – but between the length of his contract saga and the eight months since his last appearance in a blue shirt, it almost feels like he left ages ago anyway. Whether it was all prompted by Koeman’s aloofness or the shame of being put on roller skates by a single uppercut, no one knows; and to be honest, it doesn’t matter. Chances are that his agent simply knew that if he signed a long-term contract at Everton, he’d be stuck here due to the prohibitive price that any potential suitors would have to pay to get him out it.

Barkley definitely has the talent to succeed at an elite club, but with the mental fragility he’s shown at times in his career, you do have to wonder how he’ll hold up under far greater media scrutiny; and that's without considering the pressure of working with a manager who doesn’t often credit underperforming players with showing phenomenal arrogance or having incredible moments of intensity.

Whatever the case, fuck him.