OF all the many crises currently bubbling in the Premier League, the most acute feels like that at Goodison Park. Everton lie two places above the relegation zone. They’ve lost six of their last nine games.
In six away games this season, they’ve gathered just four points and scored just four goals. And that’s despite a net spend of £180m since Farhad Moshiri became majority shareholder in February 2016. When he arrived they lay eleventh; they go into this weekend 16th.
The manager, Marco Silva, looks an increasingly beleaguered figure. If it weren’t that he so obviously isn’t Sam Allardyce, the criticism he has received might have been more hostile earlier. But increasingly the familiar question has begun to be asked again: what is the point of Everton? What are they trying to do?
Last chance saloon for Marco Silva?
It’s been confirmed that the Everton manager will remain in charge for their upcoming game against Leicester#Everton pic.twitter.com/tq045ksYP7
— Unibet (@unibet) November 26, 2019
There’s not even any consistency to their problems. Everton ended last season with a run of eight games in which they lost only once and kept six clean sheets. They began this season with two more, since when they have managed only one in the league. All the familiar failings Marco Silva sides in dealing with set plays have surfaced again.
But there’s a problem going forward as well. Richarlison, Theo Walcott and Gylfi Sigurdsson have all been, at best, up and down and the result has been a lack of service to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Moise Keane or Cenk Tosun. There are, perhaps, two mitigating factors.
Firstly, that Everton have suffered significant midfield injuries. Idrissa Gana Gueye had been a possibly under-rated part of their spine last season and the player brought in to replace him after his departure for Paris Saint-Germain, Jean-Philippe Gbamin, has featured in only two games – those clean sheets at the start of the season – because of a hamstring problem. Andre Gomes then suffered his horror injury against Tottenham and Fabian Delph is a doubt for Sunday’s game at Leicester.
And secondly, there is the curious fact of the xG charts, which suggest Everton should have scored six more goals and conceded five fewer than they actually have, and that, if everything had gone according the algorithm they would have seven more points than they actually do – something that places them fifth in the xPTS table. Only Manchester United have underperformed more against the equation.
How much that means is debatable. There’s always the temptation when xG charts throw up such an unexpected result to wonder whether the algorithm is flawed. xPTS is a particularly volatile measure (it has Manchester City four points clear of Liverpool at the top of the table, with Manchester United a point further back in third) but at the very least it should offer pause for thought. What is it about how Everton are playing that makes it diverge so strikingly from the model?
And when there is talk of a boardroom split at Everton (here people presumably mean Bill Kenwright pushing & wanting Moyes and Moshiri wanting something else) – the current shareholding has Moshiri with 77.23% and Kenwright with 5%. And amid all this Silva limps on.
— Phil McNulty (@philmcnulty) November 26, 2019
To say it comes down to confidence is an oversimplification but essentially Everton miss a lot of chances and they concede a disproportionate number of goals for the chances they offer up. There is a lack of ruthlessness and edge to them, which perhaps isn’t surprising given their three creators are all players who, for all their obvious talent, have never quite performed consistently at a higher level.
It’s hard then not to look at Moshiri’s transfer policy and wonder whether there’s been too much focus on picking up players on the way down when they are expensive, rather than seeking bargains on the way up. The lack of game time for Ademola Lookman, who left for Leipzig, and Tom Davies, who has just reclaimed a place in midfield, are perhaps a knock-on effect.
But the most critical Moshiri signing is Silva, somebody he first moved for in October 2017. Everton ended up having to pay £4m in compensation to Watford after being accused of tapping Silva up. There is a lot beyond money invested in him but at the moment there is little sign of improvement. Relegation seems improbable, but this is a strange season – a more established side could easily get sucked into the scrap.
With so many clubs contemplating a change of manager, it feels at the moment like a great game of chicken between four or five Premier League clubs – nobody wants to sack a manager prematurely but equally nobody wants to miss out on the best candidates available. Sunday at Leicester will be a tough afternoon for Everton and perhaps a decisive one for Silva.
