The inconvenient truth is that Koeman, Allardyce, and Silva probably had this group of players over performing. Before everyone dies laughing, I’d say that what they did which was unforgivable is buy them in the first place, but once they were in the squad they’ve actually taken teams of players who are of such a low standard and managed to keep them in the league. That is the size of the task facing Ancelotti now. Going through the areas of the team and drawing comparisons with other premier league teams and historical Everton teams shows just how unbelievably poor quality these players are. For some reason though the fan base seems to think that they have some higher level they can go to and they could do it on a regular basis. I don’t actually think they do.
Pickford. I actually think he’s an ok prem keeper. One of the few players of premier league level in comparison to his peers.
Full backs. Seamus Coleman, Everton captain, hasn’t actually bothered to learn how to ever pass or cross a ball properly even with his one good foot. His pace has completely left him and he has no footballing brain whatsoever. No other team in the league would indulge him. None. He threw a throw in to an attacking opposition player. He can’t cross a football. If you froze all the opposition players and gave him all the time in the world he still couldn’t play a through ball or find a cross. I know the fans like him, but I’m not bothered anymore, he’s a league one standard full back at best and we have him as captain it’s a joke.
Baines is too slow and too old and could never defend anyway. Seriously he was good 6 years ago.
The truth is we have two ok full backs in Digne and Sidibe and that is it. Baines Coleman Kenny Martina, whatever they’ve done in the past, whatever they might do in the future, are currently trash and not good enough to be playing prem football.
Centrebacks: Michael Keane isn’t good enough for the premier league. He’s slow, can’t pass, lumbers around, weak in the air, slow to react. If you offered him in a swap only teams in the bottom three would be interested and even then I’m not even sure they would.
Yerry Mina is better in the air and on the deck but has massive limitations to his game in all the other areas. He’s also really slow and doesn’t anticipate danger.
I think Holgate is the best of the lot and he’s a short centreback with no pace. That says absolutely everything about the quality we have back there.
Apart from Digne (when he’s on form) I don’t think any premier league team would take any other player from our back line. In comparison to the players Moyes had of Jagielka, Lescott, Distin, peak Baines, Yobo, Heitinga. They are absolutely leagues away from that sort of quality, absolutely miles. Can you imagine any of our CBs playing LB like Lescott did with ease? They can’t even run!
Midfielders (excluding Gbamin and Gomes). Not a single premier league team would take any midfielder we had. I can’t think of a midfield two worse than Siggurdson and Schneiderlin in the whole football pyramid. Seriously, any midfield pairing at any professional level with an ounce of pace between them could utterly dominate these two (as a bunch of kids did on Sunday).
We all like Tom Davies but we need to grow up and realise he’s also too slow and is an average player who should be in the championship.
I think Delph is just about at the minimum standard expected of a prem midfielder which leaves us with one fit player in that position who might be good enough to play premier league.
Just to sum up how bad these two areas of the team are. Johnny Heitinga, World Cup finalist international centreback who was only good enough to sit on the bench for Everton behind Jags and Distin. If he was in this team, not only would he be our best defender by a billion light years, he’d also be our best midfielder!! He couldn’t even make the team in 2012 despite being player of the season the year before yet he would stroll into this side in any position he wanted to. That’s the quality drop we’re talking about.
Upfront and outwide we have really poor players. Calvert Lewin, Richarlison and Walcott can’t play football. If either of them manages a third touch of the ball it’s a miracle that they didn’t lose it with their second. They can’t play football, they can’t pass it, they can’t link together, they can’t dribble past anyone, they can’t finish. They’re basically three fast players who have a knack of getting into the box at the right time for a header or tap in (although Walcott doesn’t have that even). They can’t play football though. Compare them to Vardy, Jimenez, Rashford, Martial, Moura, Son. That’s not even the top level of forwards and they’re all miles better than what we have. Leicester have Demarai Gray and Iheanacho sat on their bench. They’d walk into our front line. Iwobi and Bernard have the opposite problem of playing football as if the goals don’t exist which is useless at premier league level. I won’t even mention Tosun and Niasse.
We have a defensive unit that is barely premier league standard, we have a midfield that due to injuries is the poorest in the league without a doubt and in my opinion one of the worst at any level of English football and we have a strike force that apart from chucking itself at high balls and making a nuisance of itself can’t actually play football.
I’m actually amazed that we didn’t go down in 17/18, genuinely amazed. Allardyce deserves all the stick he gets but how he kept that squad up I’ll genuinely never know. Some of the teams he put out were the poorest starting 11s I’ve ever seen in the premier league.
Pickford
Kenny Williams Mangala Martina
Siggurdson Schneiderlin McCarthy
Bolasie Tosun Calvert Lewin
How did we not go down?!
As a fan base I think we need to redefine immediate expectations. The price of players we’ve bought in, the length of the Moyes years having us at a certain standard, the recent likes of Lukaku Stones etc. has duped the fan base into thinking our natural level at a minimum is 7th. When you take a cold hard look at the players we have though and the quality of them our only aim should be to stay up. People will criticise me for saying this but this is not a top half squad, no way, not even close. You can take players from the teams in the bottom three and they walk into our team without question and they wouldn’t want many of ours in return.
Ancelloti has an absolutely huge job to do, successive managers have assembled some of the worst quality premier league squads of all time over the last few seasons and now we are paying the price for it. I’ve not even covered the players on loan who everyone unanimously agreed were far worse than the ones who are still here.
In my opinion Ancelotti actually has a bigger job on his hands than Moyes did when he came in. Moyes has a core of solid older pros and Rooney Osman and Hibbert coming through. He added in a couple of good buys and at least had an ok first 11. Ancelotti has about five players who might be premier league standard out of his whole squad. That’s it. He has to turf the rest out and somehow stockpile another 18 premier league standard players just to get a squad that might finish mid table!
