Arsenal v Everton preview: Why are Everton having such a tough time?

 

 

By Tony Attwood

• Arsenal v Everton: journies of evolution and decline
• Lewis Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri: both with Arsenal, both attracting more
• 100 years of Chapman, part 12: what made him such an amazing manager

Everton last won the league in 1986/7 – it was their second win in three seasons.   This was of course the 1st Division – the Premier League was still half a dozen years way.  

Until 2006/7 Everton were mostly confined to the lower part of the league, only reaching the top ten twice, but then things picked up.  They had a run of eight top-ten finishes, after which there was a mix of top-ten and bottom-ten seasons.

However in 2019/20 a downturn started as in successive seasons they came 12th, 10th, 16th, 17th, and 15th, getting to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup but no further.

Relegation however did not follow as the League regularly included clubs that had no longer-term Premier League pedigree,   In 2020 Watford and Norwich went down automatically, in 2021 West Bromwich and Sheffield United, in 2022 Watford and Norwich again, in 2023 Leeds and Southampton.

So it is that a number of clubs who don’t perform that well, manage to stay in the Premier League because there is always a little collection of clubs that either have just come up, or which have delicate financial positions, go down again.

In recent years therefore Everton’s end-of-season position has been uninspiring.  You might care to look first at the foot of this table and see that in 2022 Everton were 16th after 14 games, with 14 points.   Last season it was only half as good, with just seven points, although the goalscoring was better.

Then this season, shown in the top row it is 14 points after 14 games.  In fact this is the third successive season of poor form, which coincides of course with the building of the new stadium.  One wonders if they will shake off the blues next season when they are settled in (if they are).

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
15	Everton 2024	14	3	5	6	14	21	-7	14
18	Everton 2023	14	5	2	7	15	20	-5	7
16	Everton 2022	14	3	5	6	11	14	-3	14

 

But overall, the problem is that while Arsenal have had just one manager since December 2019, Everton who changed their manager at that moment at almost the same moment as Arsenal, have since had five managers.  So five Everton managers to one for Arsenal.  That surely counts for something.

Everton managers

The Percent figure at the end is the win percentage.  Details from Wiki

 

Manager	Joined	Left	P	W	D	L	Percent
Carlo Ancelotti	21 Dec 2019	1 June 2021	67	31	14	22	46.27%
Rafael Benítez	30 June 2021	16 Jan 2022	22	7	5	10	31.82%
D Ferguson	16 Jan 2022	31 Jan 2022	1	0	0	1	0.00%
Frank Lampard	31 Jan 2022	23 Jan 2023	43	12	8	23	27.91%
Sean Dyche	30 Jan 2023		79	26	23	30	32.91%

 

As you can see, January is their favourite time for changing managers.  Remember that in the coming six weeks.

In this same period, despite the calls by some lunatics for Arteta to be replaced, Arsenal have had an overall win percentage across all those seasons of 59.5%, and have won the FA Cup.  Arteta in fact has overseen 235 league games, won 139, drawn 39 and lost 57.

So it is an interesting question to ask: is all this managerial change stuff worthwhile?

Time and again we have raised the question and each time the answer appears to be “no”.  Although of course where a club has been doing badly it could be argued that had the club kept the same manager as before they could well be doing even worse.

That’s academic, obviously, but it does seem to me that clubs really ought to think longer about getting rid of a manager.   On the other hand, before Arteta, Arsenal did sack Emery.  But then, Emery had made a catastrophic error in spending a huge chunk of the entire budget on one player who turned out to be no good.  And sadly none of his other signings looked that spectacular.

Although to be slightly fairer, signing Tierney was a good move although maybe better scrutiny of his injury potential might well have made the club look elsewhere.  He was last seen on loan with Real Sociedad but his potential for injuries suggests that he was never really the player we were looking for.

Pepe meanwhile eventually left on a free and is now with Trabzonspor.  

But did Emery sign some good players?  Well yes.  William Saliba is one.  Gabriel Martinelli is another (and I still rate him to come back to form, given his young age).   And I’d add Bernd Leno, who although now surpassed, was a good keeper for Arsenal while he was with us.

So why is Everton having a tough time?  Answer: they keep changing managers.