Everton v Arsenal this saturday lunchtime: just what are Everton playing at?

 

Everton are in real trouble

Previous: The real facts about football that the media will never touch

• Why, with football, it is important to ask what is not being reported
• The real live facts that the media won’t ever touch (part 2)
• What the media won’t tell you about football, part 3 – referee home bias
• What the media won’t tell you about football, part 4 – referee variations
• What the media won’t tell you about football 5: Fifa lends money to Switzerland
• What the media doesn’t tell you, part 6. There’s a financial problem…

By Bulldog Drummond

The match is on BT Sport 1 and kicks off at 1230.

I’m sure you will hardly need telling of Everton’s travails.  And to make things worse they didn’t do anything to address their problems in the transfer window, save accepting the return of Ellis Simms from a loan to Sunderland.  In fact, in letting Anthony Gordon go for £40m it almost looks as if they have given up on the Premier League.

Which is a bit odd not only because no one wants to be relegated, but Everton are one of just six clubs to have survived in the league from the start, the others being Arsenal, of course, plus Manchester United, Tottenham Hots, Liverpool and Chelsea.

In fact the last time they were in anything other than the top division was 1953, making this their 70th anniversary at the top.,  Their last trophy was the 1995 FA Cup and their last title was in 1987 when they finished a spell of two league titles, one FA Cup win, one league runners’ up spot and twice being defeated finalists in the FA Cup. 

Since then they have managed fourth twice, and been in three more FA Cup finals winning it in 1995 – their last trophy, 28 years ago.  

And now here they are in the league, 35 points behind Arsenal and with Arsenal having played a game fewer.  They have scored 30 goals fewer than Arsenal and let in 19 more.

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	19	16	2	1	45	16	29	50
16	West Ham United	20	5	3	12	17	25	-8	18
17	Wolverhampton Wanderers	20	4	5	11	12	30	-18	17
18	AFC Bournemouth	20	4	5	11	19	42	-23	17
19	Everton	20	3	6	11	15	28	-13	15
20	Southampton	20	4	3	13	17	35	-18	15

 

So we ought to have a look at their home form and Arsenal’s away form, to see if that evens things up a bit.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
19	Everton at home	10	2	2	6	9	14	-5	8
1	Arsenal away	10	8	1	1	20	6	14	25

 

Not surprisingly the result looks like an Arsenal win.  Everton are scoring 0.9 goals per home game and conceding 1.4 goals.  Arsenal are scoring 2.0 goals per away game and conceding 0.6.   On that basis the result is most likely to be Everton 1 Arsenal 2, but Arsenal could go on a bit of a rampage if they feel like it.  Just for fun.

Arsenal will be aided by the fact that Everton fans are reported to be angry about the lack of new players and it is reported that Dyche wanted two attackers – although I hardly think that will be enough given the state of the club.  (We’ll consider the notorious Dychian tactics next time – he is not a man known to be interested in football).

However it is reported that Everton are or were “in talks” with free agent Andre Ayew who has just left Al Sadd of Qatar.  But I think they have missed out on even him.

The owner of Everton did promise a striker, but these club owners are pesky fellows who don’t always keep their word so the lack of one is perhaps not surprising.

Everton are in fact the second lowest scorers in the league, although in defence they have let in fewer than the notoriously leaky Tottenham Hots – although to be fair so have Wolverhampton Wands.   In fact Tottenham’s defence is so porous the media seem determined not to talk about it at all, concentrating on the Kane fellow instead in their usual lopsided manner.

But one of the most interesting things about Everton’s January transfer activities is that they did seemingly keep putting bids in, only to have them rejected by other clubs.   Udinese refused to deal over Beto Betuncal, Watford wouldn’t loan Ismaila Sarr, Rennes’ Kamaldeen Sulemana chose Southampton instead, Thorgan Hazard of Fenerbahce didn’t fancy it, and nor did Conor Gallagher of Chelsea, and Jean-Phillipe Mateta of Palace.  In fact no one seems to want to go to Merseyside.  I can’t imagine why.

So why did such players all refrain from joining Everton, including Andre Ayew who it seems preferred a spell of unemployment as the alternative?  What is wrong with the club and its owners?

One big factor in their current situation is that they are building a new stadium.  But even here there is a problem as shown in the headline “New Everton stadium may never be finished as pundit suggests new ‘huge blow'”.   Of course that is just the normal mindless media tittle tattle, but the argument is that if Everton go down, they simply won’t have the money to be able to finish the stadium although probably false, is rather amusing.

Everton have not won any of their last ten league and cup games and in the last 12 Premier League games they have won just one and drawn one, losing the other ten.  It is indeed looking like they are heading for a visit to the Championship.