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.