TIRED of waiting
for the new season of the Walking Dead? Take a trip to Goodison Park instead
for your fix of gruesome zombie action.
Because Ronald
Koeman’s shapeless Everton team resemble a herd of the show’s brainless,
lifeless monsters shuffling around slowly in one big mass.
Only they’re a lot
less dangerous, wandering around aimlessly and getting in each other’s way,
mostly in the centre of the pitch until they’re stopped dead in their tracks by
a quicker, craftier foe.
Okay, okay I’m
joking but it does feel a little like that sometimes watching this team of too-many-tens
play with no width, no pace and seemingly no idea how to win a game.
Twenty-three times
they actually managed an attack ending in a shot against Burnley, but only four
of them were on target.
That’s 17 of those
now this season, with only Swansea and Crystal Palace managing less.
But it isn’t much
better at the other end either. Zombie FC have gone behind first in eight of
their last nine games, and allowed Burnley 24 unhindered passes before Jeff Hendrick
scored the winner.
Perhaps the worst
thing about it all is that by all accounts this understandably rather
frustrating approach is making zombies of those watching it too, sucking the
life out of a once vibrant stadium.
“Like being at a
funeral” as one wag put it. Before anyone gets too excited though, it’s
unlikely to spell the end of Koeman just yet.
And to be fair, bad
as Everton have been (and they have been very, very bad at times), sacking your
manager this early in the season isn’t usually a good idea.
After all, it hasn’t
exactly worked for Crystal Palace, has it?
Koeman does have
some mitigating circumstances. He has a lot of new players to try and fit into
a team, and no experienced target man to play off.
But this is his
team. He’s bought almost everyone in it, and they are all players he agreed
were needed. Despite the obvious holes, for the money spent, fans are right to
expect better.
Much better in
fact, because Everton’s whole recruitment policy this summer revolved around
bringing in those three No 10s and it was never obvious how they could all be
shoehorned into the same side.
But it could get
worse before it gets better. Koeman’s worst run in English football came just
last season when his side won just once in 11 games, and we're not quite in that territory yet.
At Southampton the
season before, he went on a similar run, his side winning only once in ten
games.
On both occasions
he turned it around and achieved a respectable finish, and he has never had a
squad with this much talent in it to work with since he came to England.
Pickford, Keane,
Gueye and Sigurdsson have not suddenly become bad players overnight. Youngsters
like Davies and Calvert-Lewin have not suddenly been found out.
They are just
struggling because their confidence is shot, and while that will not be easily
repaired, it should also not be impossible to fix.
Koeman will almost
certainly get the time to try, and of all the managers Everton shortlisted to
replace Roberto Martinez, he still looks like the right choice. Frank de Boer anyone?
Whether he is
capable of taking this team where it wants to go though, is another thing entirely.
Koeman has never
gone more than nine games unbeaten in league football in this country, and virtually
everything he has tried this season has failed.
He’s tried calling
out his players. He’s tried defending them. He’s tried more formations than you
can count on the fingers of one hand. He hasn’t found the answer yet, and time
is running out.
