Meet the new Everton, same as the old Everton
It was typically obfuscatory of Jose Mourinho to apportion some of the blame for Manchester United’s late concession against Everton at the feet of Everton themselves. If they hadn’t played long-ball football, he would not have brought on Marouane Fellaini and his giant toddler would not have knocked over the full glass placed in front of him. Curse Everton and their direct football.
“Everton is not a passing team any more like they were in the past. Everton is a team that plays direct: goalkeeper direct, Ashley Williams direct, Funes Mori direct. Everything direct,” said Mourinho, which is backed up by statistics that showed the Toffees third behind Burnley and Crystal Palace in the ‘long ball’ table ahead of this weekend’s fixtures. The mistake Mourinho made was in suggesting this was a new Everton, somehow different from the old Everton; last season they were fourth in the same ‘long ball’ table. Ronald Koeman’s Everton is still very much Roberto Martinez’s Everton.
This version of Everton still has the same aimless, horizontal passing. It still features the same long ball lofted towards Romelu Lukaku. It still too often features him losing that long ball. It absolutely still showcases some absolutely abhorrent defending, particularly from set-pieces.
“We know it’s a big project,” said Ronald Koeman this week, and that feels like a massive understatement. Having taken over a Southampton team who were already well-versed in the powers of pressing, he has now taken over an Everton side that leaves you reaching for synonyms for ‘aimless’. Nowhere does it say ‘half-arsed’ but it feels a little like that, with passes going astray, runs being left unmade, marking looking optional rather than mandatory. They look slow. They look devoid of ideas. They look like Everton.
They scored via a long ball from Gareth Barry and predictably excellent finish from Lukaku but then there was nothing. There were sideways passes between central defenders and central midfielders, long launched balls and then there was Watford saying ‘thank you very much’ and launching a counter-attack. I rarely write of ‘passion’ and ‘hunger’ because they are 606 buzzwords referring to something intangible that is impossible to quantify, but Everton look devoid of either. For a side that needed victory, they did not look like a side who wanted it enough.
The urgency came – and almost brought an undeserved point – far too late, by which time Watford were 3-1 up, bringing on Ben Watson and retreating towards their own box. Lukaku’s 86th-minute goal set up a grandstand finish but that it was only their second on-target shot of the game should embarrass Everton and Koeman. The draw would have masked 80 minutes of pretty terrible football, with only Gerard Deulofeu looking capable of creativity. He at least took on players and whipped in crosses only to find that nobody was either willing or able to make a near-post run.
“Do you have the players to play how you want to play?” was the question asked of Koeman by Sky Sports and the answer came very quickly indeed in the negative. The summer was a disappointment, with £100m promised but only half of that spent, with cover for Lukaku only arriving in the form of a striker not wanted by West Ham. And yet, it still feels like Koeman should have done something better with these players, just as it feels like Mourinho should have done more at Manchester United. Part of a manager’s job is to improve and develop, not simply to buy players already suited to a certain style.
It is far, far too early to judge Koeman’s reign as Everton manager but that does not mean that fans do not have the right to question why their upgraded manager is delivering the same brand of dire football as the old, discarded one. Koeman out? God no. Koeman under pressure to deliver? Yes and quite rightly so.
Sarah Winterburn