Saint Domingo
Player Valuation: £90m
The addition of McCarthy Barkley and Lukaku were the missing pieces to take that team to another level. With Mirallas already in situ as well we finally had a midfield with the pace and power to dominate teams (but they could play as well) and upfront we had forwards who could either pick defences open or play on the counter. We also had pace all across the back line allowing us to squeeze up and individually defend one v ones. Add to all that we had Naismith Osman Deulofeu Jelavic off the bench, genuine options to change a game.
It’s the most complete PL team I’ve seen at Everton with components to match opposition in different ways. We could have put 7 past title challenging Liverpool at Goodison on the front foot if players had finished better, yet also had the game to go to Newcastle and run a counter the length of the pitch.
The sad thing about it is we didn’t learn the lessons from that squad. We reverted to buying slow lumbering CBs (Williams, Keane, Mina), we allowed the fullbacks to decline without replacing them. We replaced Barkley and McCarthy with slow ponderous midfielders who couldn’t impose themselves on the game, couldn’t pass, couldn’t tackle, couldn’t scrap and fight (Schneiderlin, Klaasen, Siggurdson, Cleverley, Doucoure) and upfront we completely turned away from having three players with pace and the ability to link up, to buying slow hesitant forwards (Tosun Rondon Maupay Sandro Rooney)
I’m hoping that if we can stay up under Dyche we can start to turn around 10 years of complete failure to build on what Moyes put in place and what Martinez then built on in that glorious first season.
A massive shame for Everton in that period were the injuries to McCarthy and Barkley because back then there were few better than those two. McCarthy in particular was a rolls Royce. He was a bit conservative with his passing but he just owned a midfield through sheer physicality (as seen when we left him out v Palace and Barry was exposed). Even under Koeman when he got back fit he had 45 mins in the derby against Klopp’s dopers and ran all over their midfield, he went off at half time and they just took back control in the second half and they got a late winner from a Sturridge mis hit. When people talk about Gana playing well now, he’s nowhere near where McCarthy was at.
