EVERTON
Everton ended up having a really poor season, finishing below Chelsea, thirteen points below arch rivals Liverpool and nearly twenty points off the top four. However, Everton's tale is an odd one. They reached two cup semi-finals, and coming up to the Christmas period, they were looking about where you'd expect them to be, sat 7th and only six points off 4th place in the back end of November. In fact they were still only six points off the top four after beating Newcastle in the 93rd minute on Boxing Day.
It was a pretty good start for Everton, as they creamed Southampton and drew with Watford and Spurs in August, as well as seven points from September, with wins over West Brom and Chelsea. In fact before they were pummeled by Man United after the October international break, they'd only lost once: to Man City. November saw them see off wretched Sunderland and Aston Villa, scoring ten goals in the process, and other than an astonishing 97th minute equaliser, they would have beaten Bournemouth too (to revisit my insane reaction to this goal, live on radio, click the link: https://audioboom.com/boos/3887583-tom-goes-crazy).
December saw the start of Everton's slide. Dropping points against Palace and Norwich, and then losing to Leicester, led to Everton's crazy 4-3 defeat to Stoke at the end of December. Looking bad, this moment, this defeat, is probably when Everton lost the plot. And after that, it was all downhill. January didn't appear to be going badly, as they secured draws against Chelsea, Spurs and City, before a defeat to Swansea and City knocking them out of the Carling Cup left them tottering.
By this point they had slid down the table to 12th. And they were never able to fully recover from this. Despite back to back 3-0 wins over Stoke and Newcastle in early February and a 3-1 win over Villa on 1st March, they would go on to fail to win another game until the end of April. Defeats to West Brom, West Ham, Arsenal, United and draws to Watford, Palace and Southampton culminated in their humbling, humiliating 4-0 travesty at Anfield. It's funny that a draw with Everton cost Brodge his job nine months ago, and that result at Anfield probably cost Martinez his, although it wasn't official until Everton were knocked out of the FA Cup several days later. A similarly unacceptable 3-0 defeat to Sunderland meant that Everton finished the season on a low point, although a 3-0 win over Norwich on the final day got them ahead of Swansea in the final table.
Overall, this was a very poor season from Everton's perspective. Roberto Martinez's sacking was justly deserved and what was a reasonably positive start completely fell away. Everton might not be challenging for a top four place, but they allowed the likes of Stoke, West Ham, and Southampton to lap them in recent years, and of course Leicester. The goal threat of the likes of Lukaku and Barkley ran dry in the back half of the season, and despite threatening to score as many as some of the top teams, Everton finished with just 59 goals and defensively they were very poor for large swathes. John Stones never looked like a £50m central defender Funes Mori was awful and they had key individuals missing at key points. But overall, this was very poor from Everton and Martinez.
The Hard and Fast Section
- England lead by over 400 runs. Ouch.
- Woakes and Root continuing to star.
- Lewis Hamilton. What a driver he is.
- And young Max Verstappen looks very bright too.
- Today is the day Froome wins Le Tour.
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