Everton in 10th - How did we get here?

Everton, after a horrendous 5-2 loss to Liverpool (which resulted in the sacking of M.Silva), has done the impossible, and find themselves in the top half of the table. We were staring down the barrel of a relegation fight, with only 4 wins (against West Ham, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Watford & Southampton), and losses to Aston Villa, Sheffield United & Norwich (All 3 promoted teams).

While there was controversy surrounding the results against Brighton (3-2 loss), and Tottenham Hotspurs (1-1 draw), we waved goodbye to Marco Silva after that derby loss at Anfield and welcomed an old face to the club - Duncan Ferguson, the Scottish former striker for Everton. Immediately, he set to work building us towards where we want to be - challenging for a European spot. It’s certain that without him in that caretaker manager role, we would not have been able to lure #MrAncelotti to our club.

Wearing Howard Kendell’s old watch, Ferguson lead the Dogs of War to a 3-1 win against Chelsea at Goodison Park. Goals from Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (2) meant that Everton finished with 3 points for the first time in a month, and a 5th win which lifted us out of the relegation zone.

We came up against Manchester United away at Old Trafford the next week; we’ve only beaten them away twice in the history of the Premier League. While we did ultimately fall short (due to a Mason Greenwood equalizer in the 77th minute) from a win, it was a remarkable effort with a number of players out injured. At this point, we had 4 points from 2 of the games that we had feared the most at the start of the season.

We’d had a really easy start: Crystal Palace (A), Aston Villa (A), Bournemouth (A), Sheffield United (H), Brighton (A), Southampton (A), & Norwich (H). Out of those 7 games, which we should have received close to 21 out of 21 points, we received only 4 - a win against Southampton and a draw at Selhurst Park against Crystal Palace. Even with the controversial penalty against us at Brighton ruled out, we would only have received one-third of the points tally available to us. Most teams could only dream of the start to the season that we had. If we wanted to be challenging for a top 6 position (which many journalists had predicted just after the summer transfer period opened) we needed to win those games, and to be just as good away from home as we were at home.

Even when we were at home, we were still atrocious. We lost 2-0 to Sheffield United, who had only recently been promoted. They had 1 shot for the whole match (thanks to a Yerry Mina own goal, the scoring opened). We lost to Norwich a few weeks later as well. And we were also conceding a number of goals at home.

Against Wolves, when we won 3-2 (thanks to a Richarlison double and Iwobi’s first Premier League goal for the Toffees), we shipped 2 goals to Wolverhampton, who converted their shots with a 63% accuracy rate - compared to our 40% shot accuracy. We dominated that match - with 15 shots to 8, it should have been a decisive victory (we also had 60% possession, 131 more passes and Wolves had the disadvantage of 4 yellow cards throughout the match). Instead, we just creeped over the line with an 80′ strike from Richarlison, and while a win is a win, the mood of the supporters was quite flat.

A 1-1 draw against Man United at Old Trafford was followed by a supremely disappointing clash with Leicester City in the Carabao Cup quarter-final. While we went 2 goals behind within the first half an hour, we grinded the game out, with goals from Davies (70′) and the substitute Baines (90+2′) allowing us to proceed to penalties.

Unfortunately for us, the fairytale ended there, where despite many mistakes by the Leicester defenders they held on to dispatch us via spot-kicks, in what was a cruel way to finish our cup run.

A goalless draw against Arsenal was the best we could get in what was Duncan Ferguson’s last game in charge of us as caretaker manager. We threatened in a match that saw plenty of chances but, against a team of essentially teenagers (and David Luiz) we lacked the killing punch to be able to score a goal.

Signing #MrAncelotti, who is one of the greatest managers of all time - virtually winning everything there is to win in club football - was a major coup for Everton. With wins against gritty sides Burnley (1-0) and Newcastle (1-2), we are now sitting in 10th spot, with 11 of our 25 points coming this month. Hopefully we can build on this great month and start the new year with a bang against Man City on the 2nd of January, 2020. Liam