Opposition View: Everton
Last season was something of a write off for Everton. They sacked Ronald Koeman after a difficult start to the season, saw Sam Allardyce come in and keep them in the Premier League and then moved for former Watford boss Marco Silva in the summer.
The Toffees are far too much of an established side to ever be seriously troubled by relegation, but as the big six continue to pull away from everyone else, they seem further than a push for Champions League football than ever.
Ahead of the Albion’s visit to Goodison Park, we spoke to Danny from Everton fan site Grand Old Team about the Toffee’s hopes for the future, whether they can crack the top six and if Marco Silva has been worth the wait.
Everton spent heavily last season and there were plenty of pundits who backed them to break into the top six. Why do you think that didn’t happen?
The season prior, we were almost in a league of our own – finishing seventh, 15 points clear of eighth and eight points away from sixth. We needed to make big changes to have any hope of competing with the teams above us. To the board’s credit, they tried that but in hindsight, perhaps we needed evolution, rather than revolution.
Our recruitment under Steve Walsh was very poor. We signed too many players, seemingly collecting ‘number 10s’ and failed to address a real lack of balance in the side. We didn’t have natural full backs for large periods of the season and we didn’t even try and replace Lukaku and started the season without a decent striker. Sandro Ramirez and Oumar Niasse were never going to be good enough. We also had a particularly tricky opening run of fixtures, the first five games had us away to Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United, with Spurs and Stoke at home – all the more trickier when we were starting them with seven summer signings in the starting eleven. When you consider Koeman was sacked nine games into the campaign, perhaps the early run of fixtures did him no favours.
What was the reason behind the acrimony with Big Sam? Do you think he was harshly treated?
How many teams in the top half of the division would want or embrace Sam Allardyce as their manager? Allardyce was a master at controlling the media narrative. He really did learn a lot from his time with Alastair Campbell… ask any fan base other than Bolton who has had to endure him and their verdict on the man will be remarkably consistent.
Koeman was sacked, the board hoped to appoint Marco Silva, couldn’t, David Unsworth wasn’t considered able to hold the fort until the end of the season and so Allardyce come in until the end of the season, when we could appoint someone on permanent basis. Allardyce took Everton from 13th to eighth, with the help of Everton signing Cenk Tosun (that striker we didn’t have!) and Theo Walcott. The football was absolutely terrible – it wasn’t a surprise to see things like Everton being 20th in the table for efforts on goal under Allardyce. Allardyce knew exactly what he was getting, he was always ‘really’ just interim and he pocked a reported £6m+ for six months easy work.
As you’ve already said, you had to wait a while to get Marco Silva in the hot seat.. How is he getting on and has he been worth the wait?
It’s too early to say whether he was worth the wait. He, alongside new director of football Marcel Brands inherited a right mess. It’s going to take him some time. The signings they’ve made have looked very promising – Richarlison, Digne, Zouma, Gomes, Bernard, with Mina yet to come in.
What’s the aim for Everton this season?
It’s a transitional season, league wise we have to look at seventh or eighth and go all out to win the FA Cup.
It seems like you’ve been talking about leaving Goodison Park for years. How close is that to happening now?
I’m not sure. Last week the club announced a public consultation into plans to relocate to Bramley Moore dock, the start of a formal process which will lead to the submission of planning applications in the second half of next year. With three stadium projects collapsing since 2003, time will tell whether this one will happen.
Everton have a great reputation for producing young players. Are there any names that we can expect to hear a lot more of coming through?
We hope so! Everton U23s are top of Premier League yet again – with Everton U18s also top of their league. David Unsworth and the academy staff do wonderfully well. Beni Baningime, Bassala Sambou and Lewis Gibson all sound very promising, and there’s a young lad in the U18s Ellis Simms who is scoring for fun.
Who will be the biggest threat to Brighton on Saturday?
Richarlison.
What are Everton’s weaknesses? With only two wins ever in the fixture, the Albion probably need all the help they can get
Defending set plays. Silva is implementing zonal marking and we’ve not yet got to grips with it.
If you had to sign one player from Brighton, who would you take?
Difficult one. Probably Knockaert, but then we have Richarlison, Walcott, Bernard and Lookman on our wings.
Finally, how do you see the game going?
2-1 to Everton.
Thanks to Danny for answering our questions. Make sure to check out the Grand Old Team’s Twitter Feed which recently had a brilliant video of a Palace fan filming himself going mad as they are awarded a spot kick at Goodison Park, only for joy to turn to despair as Jordan Pickford saves Luka Milivojevic’s penalty.
