So this is how it ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. After a ridiculous outlay of cash in the offseason - never was so much spent on so many to accomplish so little - Everton climb from seventh all the way to eighth. Leicester could catch them for ninth on the last day, if it matters to you.
Things started out well, with the Toffees beating Stoke 1-0 (as one does) in the opener with prodigal son Rooney keeping to the script by scoring in his first game in a blue shirt in twelve years. Everton next went toe-to-toe with the Citizens at Etihad and felt hard done by to get only a point (!). Summary dispatch was made of Ruzomberok of Slovenia and Hadjuk Split of Croatia in the opening ties of Europa.
But then - the losing began, and it wasn't just losing, it was ugly, purposeless, random football. The flaws in roster construction became plain. Ronald Koeman crashed out of Europa and plummeted down the table and interim David Unsworth failed to stem the bleeding. Only the Premiership's ultimate break-glass-in-case-of, Sam Allardyce, could or would take on the job of saving Everton from the drop. Which he did, with a run of good results to take the club out of danger. However, the fans soured on him quickly, as he played a dull, passive style, failing to even try to attack, even at home or even against weaker teams - clearly content to play for draws in visits to teams like Swansea and Newcastle. His hunker-in-the-bunker 5-2-3-1 got shredded for five by Arsenal.
Still, despite being 19th in shots and chances created, Everton have been something like 6th in the league in points since Sam came on. The patient has recovered and is up and about, but the diet has been bland and tasteless. The fans want Sam out.
What have we learned this year? What is the prognosis for next?
GK - Pickford is consensus club player of the year and probable #1 for England. Love him. Tough as hell, great competitor. Only worry is that a bigger club snaps him up. .
Defense - this was a disaster of bad planning, with
no one on the roster to spell Leighton Baines at LB. Predictably, Baines, 31, broke down with so much work early in the season. Curacao international Cuco Martina, of no left foot, was pressed into service and it was not his fault that he was out of position and over his head. Coleman, of course, was out for 2/3 of the season still with his horrific leg break, and Jonjoe Kenny filled in admirably; he looks like a solid RB. Inconsistency deviled the center-backs, made much worse by the tendency of all three managers to screw around with formations and personnel (the nadir being Sam's disastrous back-five at Arsenal). Ashley Williams was the worst regular starter on the club by far and should never play another game ever again. Holgate showed flashes but also sucked in stretches and got hurt. Keane looked lost throughout the year, but when Coleman and Baines both came back, a back four of Baines-Keane-Jagielka-Coleman was very good. Jagielka's experience seems a good match with Keane's size and vigor. With more stability and veteran players around him he looks like he can realize his upside. But Jags is getting old, Baines is past his peak, and Coleman might be too.
Forwards - I'm skipping the middle of the park for a reason and heading up front. The best accomplishments on Sam's watch have been the additions of Tosun and Walcott. Walcott has added badly needed speed and competitive fire, though Theo gonna Theo - boneheaded decisions at times, and he doesn't show much interest in tracking back. Tosun is the real deal. Service has been sorely lacking, but when he gets the ball he can score with both feet and his head. He's strong and he's quick. He's never going to be a Harry Kane, but he could be a top-10 or top-5 PL striker. I like the guy. Calvert-Lewin shows promise. Wind-up toy Oumar Niasse is a sentimental favorite for working his way out of Koeman's doghouse (once being so far in disfavor he didn't even have a locker or a number) and had a knack for scoring improbable goals in big spots, but is not skilled or reliable enough and will probably leave for Palace or West Ham. So there are some goals in this group - why don't they score more???
Which leads us to the big problem with this team in 2017-18..... the midfield.
And the big problem there, and the biggest problem facing Everton, even more than the manager situation, and the single biggest factor in dooming this season to mediocrity, is.....
Sorry Wayne.
My PL fandom doesn't go back farther than my daughter's birth in 2010 (I started watching the games at weird hours of the morning with the baby as my wife slept, and started caring about who won), but from what I understand, one of the knocks on Rooney is that he lacks a true position. So it has been this year.
He has great ball skills, as shown by his perfectly-struck 70-yard golazo against West Ham. He has smarts. He's spirited. What he does not have anymore are legs underneath him or the ability to boss opponents physically. And there's nowhere really to put him. He's not comfortable as a true striker; he doesn't have the size to hold up, nor the quickness to run in behind the defense and create out of nothing. So his raw skill set is better suited for midfield, and he could be a great No. 10 - but his body has so many miles on it, from so much football and likely so much hard living, that it can't do the things he needs to do in that position. His stats for keeping possession and winning the ball from opponents are abysmal. He does well against lesser opposition, but of course that's where he's least needed. Against teams with strong midfields like Spurs, Liverpool, Man City - he's basically a traffic cone and Everton get shredded. He's been subbed off more than any other player in the PL this year. He hasn't scored for months, and his goal total is inflated by penalties, which he's not good at - he missed two, and one of his goals comes off a penalty rebound. He can do some pretty things when the ball falls to him in space, but that can be said of most PL players.
The upside could be effective senior leadership, right? Seemed to be the case at the beginning of the season. His football smarts could be seen on the pitch and the younger players raved about his positive influence. Everton's season turned south right around the time of his arrest for DUI. May not have been the cause but his leadership became less evident after that, maybe he used up some of his standing. In any event, I think his status as prodigal son and all-time hero is a net negative, since he can't live up to it on the pitch. The team seems leaderless and flat on the pitch, and I think it's because he sucks the oxygen out of the room. No one is going to out-alpha-dog him in the locker room, but the team desperately needs someone to step up and be the guy and as long as he's around I don't think that's possible.
That had a negative ripple effect on the whole midfield. Siggurdson should be the guy that this team is built around. He's not a dynamo physically either, but he's the No. 10 for the best national team pound-for-pound (quality vs population) in our lifetimes - Iceland have no business being as good as they are and he's the guy. He was also one of the best 10's in the PL over the past few years for a Swansea team that was desperate enough to hire Bob Bradley and that is going down without him. But the need to accomodate Rooney sent him out wide where he was wasted. Everton started to improve when he was moved to the middle of the park and Rooney was dropped to sort of a No. 7 role, trailing the play. Rooney was OK there, but not good enough.
Davies had a breakout season last season but backslid. He seemed to have no clear role except to run around too much to compensate for the Rooney clog. Bolasie has been a disappointment since coming back. Last season, he was tied with Coleman and ahead of Lukaku for highest average 1-10 game grade by fans in online polling, but this year he seems lost; his situational awareness is awful. Promising youth movement with pacy young wingers Nikola Vlasic and Amendola Lookman - the latter was foolishly loaned out to RB Leipzig and wants to stay there after having a great run of games, but Vlasic got no action. Klassen looked overmatched physically and never got a chance. McCarthy, whose physicality could have helped cover for Rooney, came back from injury and promptly got hurt. Human yellow card Mo Besic got loaned to Middlesboro, had a great year, might not come back, and could have been useful.
Gueye continued to do well in the DM role, winning balls in front of the back line, but his offensive skills will always be lacking. The other DM, Schneiderlin, had a terrible, terrible season for most of it- he must have been either hurt or dealing with some kind of personal issue because he was awful. In the past few weeks, he's shown as the player who was one of Everton's best last year. His regression was also a big factor in this year sucking.
But it was bound to be a struggle no matter what. The schedule at the beginning of the season was insanely difficult - after Stoke, Man City/Chelsea/Spurs/Man U/Bournemouth/Burnley/Arsenal. Their Europa group had a tough draw with Lyon and Atalanta. Even the cups were hard - early matches against Chelsea away in the Carabao, and of course at Liverpool in the FA. With so many new players, and Sigurdsson missing the preseason after a stupidly long contract haggle, it was foolish in retrospect to expect more.
Sam is gone. He deserves thanks on the way out for doing what he was asked to do. The next manager has a tough job. Evertonians expect bone crunching tackles and gutsy, smash mouth defense - but the vogue now is for pretty-passing European-type football, like what we're seeing across Stanley Park, and they want that too. It's good to want things.
Rooney looks headed to DC United. That's best for all involved. Reinforces the image of MLS as a rocking chair league but I don't care.
There is the spine of a good team here:
-------------------Pickford---------------------
-----Coleman-Keane-Jags-Baines------ depth needed
-------------Schneiderlin/Gueye------------
---Walcott/Sigurdsson/Davies/Lookman/Vlasic depending on formation
--------Tosun/Calvert-Lewin--------------
With some good depth and maybe a premium addition or two, and a steady hand at manager, and without Wayne clogging things up, this is a team that could compete to catch a straggler out of the top six. It's a better XI than Burnley, whom Dyche has melded into an effective unit where the sum is greater than the whole of its parts. With a couple years of stability and building on success by adding good pieces judiciously, then yes I can see a good future. But top brass needs to get its act together. The fish rots from the head. Farhad Moshiri seems well intentioned and has money, but the management has been a muddled mess.
TL;DR: Goodbye Wazza. It's Gylfi's team. Need good decision-making, a good plan, and a steady hand at manager. Decent pieces in place for the future. Could compete but likely a season or two away.