Everton Season Review: The Great Escape

A magnificent, fighting turnaround against Crystal Palace in the penultimate game of the season completed their escape from the shockingly real threat of relegation; and while every Everton fan will look back and call the season a disappointment, their feelings right now will be of simple elation.

For a club with the kind of investment and statute of Everton, it was stunning to see how close they actually came to being relegated from the Premier League and having narrowly survived, the club and fans will be delighted to go into the summer to rectify the wrongs and prevent a repeat.

The sheer scale of relief and joy at Merseyside was embodied by the emotionally-charged scenes of pitch invasion 5 minutes before the full-time whistle in that game against Crystal Palace. In almost a must-win game, Everton were whimpering to another defeat going into the break 2 goals down but showed their spirit and their appetite for a scrap with a sensational turnaround – a game that embodies the story of their season in a lot of ways.

Going back to the start of the league season last year, Everton had secured themselves a huge managerial coup with Carlo Ancelotti and a combination of his star power and investment from the ownership had brought James Rodriguez from Real Madrid and Allan from Napoli – two big-name, European-competition quality footballers.

The mood at Merseyside was as upbeat as it had been in a long time and they went on to start the season with real swagger, James Rodriguez wasting no time in influencing games and Calvert-Lewin showing the goalscoring instincts his potential had shown glimpses of.

Fast forward 12 months and the mood could not have been any more different. Carlo Ancelotti left Everton in a lurch late into pre-season planning when the managerial job at Real Madrid came calling. After much deliberation and against the wishes of passionate Evertonians everywhere, the ownership decided to go with former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez at the helm.

While friction with fans was inevitable over the unpopular appointment, the strong-headed coach went on to alienate James Rodriguez who was moved on. Then in a piece of gross incompetence, was backed in his issue with Lucas Digne by having a sale sanctioned for him before being given the sack himself just a week later.

So that’s where Everton found themselves mid-season. Their best defender in Lucas Digne had just been sold to Aston Villa, Calvert-Lewin was struggling for fitness and so the goals had dried up and then despite having been backed strongly in matters at the club, Benitez was given the sack when he failed to turnaround a spell of 9 defeats in 13 games and 6 points off the relegation spots.

Morale was extremely low as Everton failed to find results even as the club took its time to find a suitable replacement. Subsequently, just days before the winter window snapped shut, Frank Lampard was hired. With mere days of the window left to work with, the club secured the signing of wantaway Spurs midfielder Dele Alli and secured a loan deal for Donny Van de Beek but even then, clear doubts remained as to how the club’s porous defence and lack of goals had not been addressed.

Frank Lampard tried to bring positivity to the Toffees’ football, something they sorely lacked under Benitez. However, patching up a defence isn’t his strongest suit so after a brief upturn in results, the porous defence and lack of discipline reared its head again and Everton got to the final 5 games of the season odds-on to be relegated. An outcome that would surely have been emotionally and financially devastating for the football club.

Ultimately, Everton kicked into survival mode and followed on a win against Manchester United with a win over Chelsea, capping off their great escape in that eventful and incredible second-half turnaround against Palace in gameweek 37.

Survival and a bitter-sweet 16th-place finish. Their underlying data across the season shows they were 14th best on expected goal difference per 90 at -0.31 which – beyond the huge relief of survival – might provide the tiniest sliver of encouragement that their underlying performances might’ve merited a slightly better finish.

End of Season Writer’s awards:
Player of the Season: Richarlison

Despite a few other contenders, I’m going to go with the popular pick here with Richarlison. The Brazilian hit 10 goals and 5 assists in the league, at least twice as many as the next highest goalscorers in the squad. He has scored some big, big goals that won them crucial points at the business end of the season.

Beyond that, he embodied the fighting spirit that the club showed in digging themselves out of trouble and even helped fire up the fans in tough times.

2) Flop of the Season: Allan

Feels really harsh to go with a talisman simply because he couldn’t keep himself fit long enough or the winger that came in on loan before the sacking of the manager that wanted him, leading to just 13 minutes played. So my pick here is Allan.

The destroyer in midfield has performed this role to a very high standard in his past 5 seasons, so much so that he often attracted interest from top European clubs each summer but his performances took a massive dip this season.

For lack of fitness or application, he failed to impact games at all in a ball-winning or ball-carrying capacity, especially relative to his previous standards. This drop-off was also a big part of Everton’s leaky defence all season.

3) Most Improved Player: Anthony Gordon

Easy pick with Anthony Gordon. The youngster came to the fore with some excellent, lively displays in the second half of the season and was arguably key in their eventual survival.

His creativity, pace and ball-carrying ability were big elements in anything good that Everton did at the back end of the season. All the more impressive considering this is a very young player having his breakthrough season amidst chaos, pressure and dysfunction around him.

4) Unsung Hero: Seamus Coleman

There weren’t too many positives for Everton this season but the contribution on and off the field from 32-year-old club captain Seamus Coleman was massively important in them securing survival. Coleman has had his own fitness worries off late but dug in to manage 30 appearances.

He played right-back and notably right centre-back when required. While he wasn’t their best performer on the field, he was a model captain and demanded passion, and fight from the team and led by example with 100% commitment on the pitch.

5) Signing of the season: Demarai Gray

While Mykolenko performed admirably at left wing-back in the crunch time of the season, Demarai Gray edges my vote for the Toffee’s signing of the season. Gray started the season in great touch and his pace, dribbling and direct style were Everton’s greatest threats before injury halted his momentum. He finished the season with 5 goals and 4 assists, a return he’d definitely want to improve upon next season while not losing any of the directness of his game.

Team Rating: 3/10

Ultimately, they have may have done a great job to retain survival in the Premier League but there should be no doubt that a club that’s spent money like they have and harbours ambition as they do, should never have been in this position to start with. It was a very disappointing campaign all around.

The decision to hire Rafa Benitez looked ill-advised considering the inevitable backlash from the fans. But having done so and then sacking him just 6 months into the job after having him sanction the sale of the club’s best defender to win an internal power struggle; looks like very poor leadership.

Their recruitment strategy has generally been poor, last summer aside, with the club often spending large sums on mediocre fringe players at big clubs rather than embracing data to make smart, quality signings that fit within a system.

Discipline was poor, players struggled to stay fit, and the defence made a whole host of errors while the burden of goalscoring rested heavily on their two talismanic attackers only. A poor season and one from which, having survived, you’d have to hope that they can only move in one direction.

So what does Everton need next season?

To put it mildly, a whole lot of sensible decisions are needed to clean up the mess that they’re in. Frank Lampard did a good job to bring unity and togetherness back amongst the Toffees but his play style lends itself very much to a front-foot positive style which, without the right kind of players, could end up going rather badly.

A lot of players close to the 30-year mark are on high wages, so it’s going to be a challenge to get them off the wage bill, and still try to get some value on them.

Still, Everton does have one of the best poachers in the league in Calvert-Lewin, the skill of Richarlison and England’s number 1 in Jordan Pickford who, despite ending the season at close to net 0 for post-shot xG saved, made some crucial saves at the pressure end of the season.

Godfrey, Holgate, Patterson, Gordon and Gray all have potential and age is on their side. In Dele Alli, there could be a huge asset if Lampard can unearth even half the player that Dele used to be.

Everton needs to freshen up their ageing central midfield with at least two signings, move Rondon on and get attacking reinforcements that can take the pressure off their two attackers.

They also need to add a quality centre back with the two qualities their current crop have struggled with – availability and reliability.