Fan Comment

Call a Doctor; Surgery is Required!

Mark Ogden famously asked ‘What more do Everton want?' Before we appointed Carlo Ancelotti. After tonight's defeat vs West Ham, we are 4th in the league table on 29 points from 16 games. Probably above anyone's expectations of where we would be, and truthfully probably more than what most Evertonians would consider to be where we would have wound up after a gruelling Xmas schedule that included Chelsea, Arsenal, Leicester and West Ham, all teams that would traditionally be Top 10 sides (as well as the supposed City game that was postponed)

After last couple of seasons of being a side finishing between 8th — 11th a serious Top 6 challenge and to qualify for European competition would have been seen as where the team should be under a full season with Carlo at the helm. So to be 4th at present is wonderful. Especially seen as Ancelotti has had one transfer window to change some of the key personal in our squad. All 5 of the signings brought in for the first team should be considered successful over the first 16 games with Godfrey and Doucoure being the most notable (despite being less glamorous than James and Allan)

But the transformation of our results at least does hide a deeper problem in all honesty. Our squad. And we need to talk about it objectively. If we want to share the same ambition as Carlo and Farhad Moshiri then some serious surgery is required. I will discuss in this article our squad (and rank what level each department is in terms of where we are in the league) followed by a comparison to perennial Top 4 finishers; Man Utd and also to a team in our similar orbit but over achieving in Leicester.

So to our squad then:

Goalkeepers: Pickford and Olsen — Good Enough. Not World Class but stable enough. Don't like Pickford much personally, due to his personality and propensity to error. Lossl is surplus to requirements and Virginia unknown. Would say this department is Top 10.

Defensive: 4 Good Quality Centre Backs with Keane exceptional and both Godfrey and Holgate have wonderful potential. Digne is in the top tier of full backs in Europe. Coleman has been a hero for us, and a player I've loved over the years. We clearly need to replace however. Given a lack of backup in both right and left back Berths this is a Top 8 for me.

Midfield: Too Many Yet not enough! We have lots and lots of players in this department yet I don't feel we have what we need. If we are going with a 3 in midfield then who is our best 3? Allan, Doucoure and ….. and this is the issue. Would it be Sigurdson? Or Gomes? Or Davies? Or Delph? Or Gbamin? If we went to a 4 man midfield and played with two wider players who plays right and left? Iwobi and James? Or Bernard? But then who else? See what I mean….lots of players, but none who have made themselves automatic first choice! If we go with a 3, both Allan and Doucoure are dynamic, and defensively solid, so I think the 3rd midfielder ideally would be a playmaker to link defence with attack. Ideally this would be Andre Gomes but he just hasn't been the player we had hoped he would be. Similarly in the wide areas, neither Bernard or Iwobi have been consistent (although Alex is getting better) and James is better centrally in my view. Looking around our midfield options are not as good as someone like Wolves so I would say Top 8 at present.

Forwards: DCL aside there is not enough goals in our forward line this season. Richarlison has 2, James has 3, Bernard has 2, Iwobi none……..and as for Cenk Tosun! Enough said. One of the worst buys in the last 5yrs and given that we have seen Niasse, Martina and Bolasie that is saying something! We need another striker and another wide forward. Letting Walcott and Moise Kean go was a mistake. At present our forward line is talented but is not performing as well as it could and overall it's worse than at least 6 other sides (Liverpool, Utd, City, Chelsea, Leicester, Spurs, Villa) so would have to say Top 8 at present.

So simply put based on this analysis we are a Top 8 side based on the sum of our parts. And this is where I think we need to acknowledge the surgery that is required. The following teams have more effective squads that we do currently: Liverpool, City, Spurs, Chelsea, Leicester, Man Utd with Wolves and Southampton also contenders to have better squads that we have. So let's look at the comparisons:

Man United:

One world class GK, an Argentinian international and a very good prospect who had a fantastic season in the PL last year. Real strength in depth here.

Wan Bissaka/Fosu-Mensah/Shaw/Telles are 4 excellent full backs. That's two for each position plus Brandon Williams could be a top player. 4 Centre Backs of which Maguire is commanding and Bailly is looking back to his best after injury. Lindelof, Rojo and Jones as back up CB are all PL ready and experienced which is excellent strength in depth.

Midfield — For me, the best in the league. Holding midfielders such as Fred, McTominay, Matic are all excellent players. Throw box to box players like Pogba and Van Der Beek into the mix and then you have Bruno Fernandes with Juan Mata, Lingard and Dan James as alternates. All 9 of these players are PL experienced with Bruno and Pogba being in the world class bracket. Lots of money spent in this department and it shows as you could pick two sets of 4 players to go into the midfield and it would be strong. The first four would be Fred, McTominay, Pogba and Bruno but when your alternate 4 is Matic, Van Der Beek, Mata and James you still have a very good set of options.

Forwards — Truly world class in every single way. Martial, Rashford, Greenwood are all superb with Edison Cavani one of the great strikers of world football in the last 10yrs and is still showing his class in the PL.

So that's 8 quality midfielders, 4 goal scoring strikers, two PL ready players for each defensive position, and 3 PL quality GK's with at least 4 players in the squad who you could put in the world class bracket….that is better than us in every department. Utd have been building this squad however over the last 5yrs or so with big big money spent on select players and a nurturing of the academy.

Let's now look at Leicester City. Another team with an excellent manager who have been building for a number of years through smart acquisitions.

They too have 4 GK's but with only Schmeichel as PL quality and the others relative unknowns. However logically GK's rarely get injured and play most of the games in the league, and given Kaspar is a better keeper than our No.1 in Pickford you could argue they were stronger.

Lots of good young players in their defensive unit coupled with some serious PL and title winning experience. Justin, Castagne, Fofana, Pereira are all excellent players with Johnny Evans and Wes Morgan experienced players. Soyuncu looks to be a fantastic centre back with more experience in the full back department with Fuchs and Amartey providing cover for the 1st choice players.

Midfield: — I love the players that they have brought to the club in the midfield. Certainly Ndidi, Tielemans, Praet and Mendy would be in my Everton midfield. Couple that with the attacking talents of Maddison (who we should have bought!) Cengiz Under and Harvey Barnes and impact players like Demarai Gray and Hamza Choudhury they have the perfect recipe to play 2 holding players and 3 attack minded attacking midfielders in a 4—2-3-1. Certainly if you offered me Ndidi, Tielemans, Maddison as my midfield 3 for Everton I would be delighted.

Forwards:- Vardy, Perez and Iheanancho. Vardy is a goal machine. Ayoze Perez is a very intelligent forward who can create and score and the young Nigerian has so much potential he could become a top top striker and was very highly thought of at Man City. If you compare to what we have, Vardy is a more proven goal scorer but overall if Richarlison and James are playing to their potential we are stronger in this department for me.

When you look at Leicester's total squad they have: 4 GK's, 11 defenders, 13 midfielders and 4 strikers. In contrast we have 4 GK's, 9 Defenders (although this includes JJK, and youngsters Braintwaite and Nkounkou) 10 midfielders (including permanently injured Delph and Gbamin) and 8 Forwards….. (although this includes Ellis Simms, Unregistered Bolasie, Cenk Tosun! And Anthony Gordon)

In my humble opinion we have a weaker squad than Leicester, but a couple of smart additions in defence and up front could sway that to our side. We do however need to lose players from our squad.

By the end of the 2020/21 season the following players should no longer be at Everton as 1st team squad players:

Lossl / JJK / Coleman / Delph / Sigurdson / Besic / Tosun / Bolasie / Bernard — So that's 9 of the 31 man squad that we should lose. We don't need to replace them with 9 players. We need to replace these 9 with just 5 players to more our squad from Top 8 towards Top 4. Based on my own view of the world these are as follows:

1. A Dynamic Right Full Back — A Seamus in his prime.
2. A Mobile Forward who can play off the shoulder off the last defender. A Vardy/Cavani type of striker. Experienced and can stretch teams.
3. A Quality Left Sided Winger — Someone who can beat a man, cross, create goals and give us another option like Iwobi on the right. Ocampos of Sevilla is the type of player I like.
4. A Creative Midfield Playmaker. Both Allan and Doucoure can keep opposition teams at bay but we want someone to take the ball of Mina/Godfrey and link with James/Richarlison or create directly for DCL. The sort of player I had hoped Andre Gomes would be, but this hasn't happened.
5. A box to box midfielder. Have to accept that Allan and Doucoure are gonna get injuries and Siguardson/Gomes/Delph/Davies just can't do the box to box thing. A player much like KDB (clearly not him exactly, but this style) of player.

If I was pushed and asked who my 5 would be (being realistic rather than fanciful) would be;

Max Arrons
Josh King
Lorenzo Insigne
Christen Eriksen
Joao Moutinho

So let's dream for a moment that over the next two windows we attract all 5 of these players and let the 9 go that I mentioned earlier. Our 25 man squad would look like this:

Pickford/Olsen/Virginia
Arrons/Holgate/Keane/Mina/Godfrey/Digne/Nkounkou
Allan/Doucoure/Gbamin/Gomes/Eriksen/Moutinho/Insigne/Davies
King/Richarlison/DCL/Iwobi/James Rodriguez

We could based on this, play 2 sets of XI's that would be competitive as hell in the PL such as how Man Utd can….suggestions based on this surgery as to how we could set up

Olsen
Arrons Keane Godfrey Digne
Iwobi Eriksen Doucoure Insigne
Richarlison DCL

Or

Pickford
Holgate Mina Keane Digne
Allan Moutinho Gomes
King DCL James Rodriguez

So, yes, to get into that Champions League and ultimately title contention, surgery is required. We need another couple of windows like the one we had in the summer and ship out plenty of the deadwood that is a hangover from a more naive and carefree time! Surgery can be painful and it can be intrusive but very often it is essential. I believe that for Everton to get to the top, it is more imperative than ever.

Follow @Ev3rtonian1

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