Ok maybe a hatrick of woefuls is a bit strong. West Ham nil nil, yep, woeful. The Chelsea home defeat was not quite woeful until the last thirty minutes when it fully qualified as a “woeful”. Still this classic Everton defeat against relegation threatened Swansea really did deserve its “woeful” description and frankly it wasn’t a surprise.
We really didn’t turn up until the second half. Barry, Jags and the often hapless Stek combined to concede a poor goal. Holgate again looked decent in defence but just lost going forward. This meant that for the third game in a row we had little width down the right and it impacted the whole performance going forward. I thought Mirallas did ok and certainly seemed bothered, as did Tom Davies throughout. But the service to the front men was generally terrible, and on a day when Rom looked like he was mentally adjusting to throwing his shirt into the crowd and saying his goodbyes at Goodison for our sizzling last home game of the season against Watford.
What was Koeman doing playing Holgate at right back and leaving Kenny on the bench when surely the time was right to maybe play a right back, at right back (innovative I know) and try Holgate at CB in place of Jags ?
Williams wasn’t great was he. Boy was I was wrong on this guy. I liked him a lot. He seemed a fearless leader. A ball winner. He had experienced a better than decent Euro’s. But almost from the start he’s struggled. He gets turned way too easily. He’s been beaten in the air way too often. He lacks pace. He just isn’t the CB I expected and because of that we now need to buy two central defenders at absurd cost.
What worries me is that these last three games won’t have done much to endear us to potential high quality recruits. Who amongst the best will fancy us ? It’s going to be a short hard summer methinks. But you never know Walsh may have it all sorted and there are some bargains on the way as well as at least four top quality additions. More if Rom and Barkley depart. One thing is for sure it’s not going to be easy as it now seems we are essentially having to rebuild, again, when previously we thought a couple of top imports would do the trick. Not great really. Still, roll on the pre pre qualifying round of the Europa in the third week of a July.
Cheers, Mark