Wembley-bound Simms livin’ large as proof of yet another stupid Everton transfer decision
Everton cannot score for toffee so the wonderful form of a Wembley-bound striker they sold to balance unsalvageable books might not improve the mood.
Spare a thought for Sean Dyche, who may be jocularly slapping himself a little too forcefully as another clumsy joke backfires on Everton.
They are an inherently Spursy club, the Toffees – the two Premier League ever-presents never to win the thing, with long old trophy droughts, capable of the incredible and the incompetent in not only equal measure, but often simultaneously.
But crucially, teams on whom the joke somehow always is.
So to Ellis Simms, who scored his 13th and 14th goals of the season and provided the match-winning stoppage-time assist to send Coventry into their second FA Cup semi-final as victors in a frankly ludicrous match against Wolves.
Atoning for one dreadful first-half miss, Simms bundled in the opener after 53 minutes, was powerless to prevent Wolves planning their journey to Wembley after Rayan Ait-Nouri inspired a comeback to lead with two minutes remaining, and then equalised in the seventh minute of stoppage-time before laying up Haji Wright for his sublime winner three minutes later.
It has been a curious season for Simms: the subject of a reported and rejected £4m Ipswich bid in June, he moved to Coventry a month later as the ostensible replacement for Europe’s top goalscorer in 2024 and can count two hat-tricks among his healthy collection of goals. But there has been no little criticism – both from a section of the Sky Blues’ support and externally – for a 23-year-old in his first full campaign of regular senior football.
That is often fuelled by instances similar to his hapless finish from inside the six-yard box when found by Jake Bidwell’s centre after half an hour at Molineux. The movement from Simms to lose Max Kilman and find himself unmarked was superb; the skewed shot was going well wide before hitting Jose Sa, making it look slightly less awful than it actually was. And boy did it look awful.
Ally McCoist stressed the point numerous times on commentary and there are worse places to seek advice as a young centre-forward essentially learning on the job: Simms could not let that moment define his game. Mark Robins has referred to him as ‘”a confidence player” before and it was the sort of belief-sapping miss which could have ruined his quarter-final.
The fortuitous nature of an opening goal which seemed to hit him more than anything did not quite override that, but the redemption was completed in 11 minutes of stoppage-time. It was a bold decision for Wolves to leave him entirely unmarked when defending a Bobby Thomas front-post flick, albeit not without reason after that first-half miss. Simms converted his header with ease this time, then reacted brilliantly to set up Wright’s sumptuous strike and send Coventry to Wembley.
Perhaps that miss was simply the final vestiges of Evertonness leaving Simms’ body; his productive and prolific excellence thereafter was far removed from anything Dyche’s side have been able to conjure up this season. He has scored as many goals (10) in his last eight games than Everton’s xG embarrassments have in their last 15, and has scored more goals in this FA Cup run alone than any Toffees player bar Abdoulaye Doucoure has managed in all competitions all season.
Maybe they shouldn’t have sold him for pure profit to help sign Youssef Chermiti and Beto (33 games, four goals) while still incurring a points deduction in what may yet become a series of them. As happy as Everton will be for their academy product, it must feel like a bit of a slap in the face.