This season - it's hardly gone as we thought it might, has it? Just as we were thinking a new dawn had happened, Everton went and did an Everton. I remember sitting in the main stand at half time at the first home game of the season against Arsenal, while we were playing really quite well indeed, that we really were going on to the next level, that we were going to kick on from last season's 5th place and get 4th, or maybe even higher. And then, with 15 minutes to go, we threw it all away, and for me, Arsenal's equalising goal at Goodison was where it all started to go wrong for us - the team's confidence never really seemed to recover. With the previous season's 3-0 demolition of Arsenal still in our minds, and being 2-0 up too, who knows if all we needed was another goal to shape a completely different season? Hey, that's football, and we'll never know.
League form dipped and never really recovered, however the Europa League provided a very good distraction from the league, and we played some decent football in that competition, with excellent displays against Wolfsburg being highlights for me. Lukaku became the club's leading European scorer in the process (and I'm told he'll still get that particular competition's golden boot, despite our exit). It has also, I have to say, been refreshing to have an Everton striker on 20 goals again.
The massive dip in the team's form happened, and the subsequent panic from some quarters was, in my view premature - people who hadn't seen the Wimbledon and Coventry last day dramas of the mid-'90's were really rather scared that the unthinkable may occur. The fact that our younger fans had not experienced those near-horrors is testament to the recovery that the club began under David Moyes, however this isn't intended to compare and contrast the styles of Moyes and Martinez, you can do that yourselves in the pub. While I do think the panic from some people was premature (and the current 10th place and 47 points vindicates me), I do understand the fear that we may have been going backwards, and let's face it, no one wants to see that.
Form did recover, and we now stand 10th in the league with a potential 50 points to score. This can be looked at in two ways - either not good enough, or that we are a work in progress for a manager in his 'difficult second season'. In actual fact, for me, it's both of those things. We appear to have a very enthusiastic manager, who clearly wants to win and is an avid student of the game, but at the end of the day this season simply has not been good enough. Some of the football on display has been turgid, which surely is the total antithesis of what the manager is trying to achieve.
I am a little disappointed that we probably will miss out on the fair play spot for Europe, as the whole point of football is to win things, and you can only win something if you're in it in the first place. Perhaps it will turn out to be a blessing in disguise - one thing is for sure though; next season simply has to be better.
TL;DR - Everton, eh?
League form dipped and never really recovered, however the Europa League provided a very good distraction from the league, and we played some decent football in that competition, with excellent displays against Wolfsburg being highlights for me. Lukaku became the club's leading European scorer in the process (and I'm told he'll still get that particular competition's golden boot, despite our exit). It has also, I have to say, been refreshing to have an Everton striker on 20 goals again.
The massive dip in the team's form happened, and the subsequent panic from some quarters was, in my view premature - people who hadn't seen the Wimbledon and Coventry last day dramas of the mid-'90's were really rather scared that the unthinkable may occur. The fact that our younger fans had not experienced those near-horrors is testament to the recovery that the club began under David Moyes, however this isn't intended to compare and contrast the styles of Moyes and Martinez, you can do that yourselves in the pub. While I do think the panic from some people was premature (and the current 10th place and 47 points vindicates me), I do understand the fear that we may have been going backwards, and let's face it, no one wants to see that.
Form did recover, and we now stand 10th in the league with a potential 50 points to score. This can be looked at in two ways - either not good enough, or that we are a work in progress for a manager in his 'difficult second season'. In actual fact, for me, it's both of those things. We appear to have a very enthusiastic manager, who clearly wants to win and is an avid student of the game, but at the end of the day this season simply has not been good enough. Some of the football on display has been turgid, which surely is the total antithesis of what the manager is trying to achieve.
I am a little disappointed that we probably will miss out on the fair play spot for Europe, as the whole point of football is to win things, and you can only win something if you're in it in the first place. Perhaps it will turn out to be a blessing in disguise - one thing is for sure though; next season simply has to be better.
TL;DR - Everton, eh?
