As part our our guest writers season we hear from Craig Hoyland who writes a small blog about Everton, which can be found here: https://craighoyland1.wordpress.com/ – If you would like to submit an article to The Everton Forum, please email to [email protected]
Everton – An Anfield Hoodoo Or Simply Not Good Enough….Yet?
Everton fans waking up on a Sunday morning, I’m guessing many with sore heads, opening their eyes and for a split second everything’s ok.
You’ve got a sore head from a night on the lash but it’s the weekend, you’ve had time to sleep it off and you’ve still got a day off work to pull yourself together. Then it happens, the realisation kicks in, swiftly followed by the gut wrenching disappointment, the anger of another ‘no show’ against that lot across the park and another three points surrendered as we effectively waved the white flag, rolled over and left Anfield with nothing!
It’s been seventeen years since Kevin Campbell scored our last winning goal at Castle Greyskull in an Everton side full of players ready to fight for the points and the bragging rights, who on paper couldn’t match the ability of their opponents but countered the gap with the dogs of war passion that Everton failed to call on in Saturdays game.
It would be a little easier to take if we actually turned up, or did we turn up and the talk of Everton’s annual Anfield capitulation is exactly that, just talk? We haven’t tasted victory at Anfield for seventeen years, in that time, including Walter Smith, we’ve had four different managers and your guess is as good as mine as to how many different players, so to say it’s a mentality thing just doesn’t add up. Are we seriously saying that all the managers we’ve had and all the players over the last seventeen years have all suffered from some kind of mentality issue when it comes to playing across the park?
Since 1994 we’ve beat Chelsea away once, we haven’t beat Arsenal away since 1996 and we’ve taken three points at Old Trafford just once since 1992. Could the reason for Everton’s dire run of results at Anfield, and the other sides I’ve just mentioned, be that we simply aren’t good enough…..yet. Look at our results this season away from home against teams in the top six. Chelsea, let’s not talk about that one, Tottenham beat us comfortably as did Liverpool and we’ve had a decent draw against Manchester City with Arsenal and Manchester United still to play.
Everton were poor against Liverpool. The set up Koeman went with gave them too much space to play in and you can’t do that against a front three of Mane, Fermino and Coutinho. Defending like amateurs also didn’t help and when you add to that Everton’s inability to threaten the Liverpool goal, it isn’t difficult to see why we lost.
It’s fair to say most blues probably breathed a sigh of relief when the referee blew for half time, Everton were 2-1 down but it could have been so much worse. Koeman had fifteen minutes to make the necessary changes that would reduce the amount of space Liverpool were revelling in and maybe Everton could still salvage something but the changes didn’t come until the 66th minute, six minutes after Origi had already put Liverpool 3-1 ahead. That, for me, was one of the most disappointing aspects of the whole sorry afternoon. We’d gone in at half time after a gutless, lacklustre performance and it was blatantly obvious it wasn’t working but Koeman did nothing until we’d conceded another goal.
It’s difficult to pick out players after yet another disappointing display at Anfield, (did I mention it’s been seventeen years since Everton walked away with three points?) but Pennington played his first game this season, yes he scored a goal but had a nightmare at the back and should have been hooked off at half time. Ross Barkley was ineffective and put in a frustrating shift running down blind alleys, releasing the ball at the wrong time or just not releasing it at all. Barkley had recently been playing some nice football and started to look like the player all Everton fans had hoped he’d be but yesterday the old Barkley was back. Lukaku was anonymous most of the game but in fairness, the service to him was virtually non existent. You could argue a top striker would show moments of brilliance and be the difference that changes the game, not today! Joel Robles has made some important stops for Everton this season but in all honesty, he was poor, nowhere near two of the Liverpool goals, in fact I don’t think he moved for them, he’s the best we’ve got but not good enough if we have top four aspirations for next season. The only player who stood out for the right reasons was Phil Jagielka who put in a decent defensive display, created the opportunity for Pennington to score and made some decent defensive blocks but aside from his offering we were poor across the pitch and deserved the defeat.
Even after Saturdays infuriating display at Anfield, its important to remember where we’re heading. There’s no denying the improvement Ronald Koeman has made to the way we play, in particular the way we generally defend, especially after the previous two seasons Everton fans have had to endure, but he needs more quality and depth in his team, we aren’t a top six side yet, at the moment we’re seventh and I’d argue that’s a fair representation of the overall quality in the Everton squad and qualification for the Europa League would be an important forwards step.
We also have a brand new waterfront stadium to look forward to. When kopites have finished making the DVD of yesterday’s game, booked the open top bus and normality resumes with the next round of Premier League games, they’ll have us all believe they aren’t worried and they don’t care but the intelligent few amongst them know what the stadium means. It means increased revenue, increased spending power, top quality players on the pitch and the irrelevance of Big Stand FC. Yesterday’s result is a painful reminder that at the moment, we aren’t quite there yet but it’s happening, everything is slowly falling into place and regardless of yesterday’s result, theres a shift in power on the Merseyside horizon.
Do you agree with Craig? Comment below or have your say on our dedicated Everton Forum at www.theevertonforum.co.uk/forum