Everton have been up and down so far since Sean Dyche took over, and fixing their chronic goalscoring issues might be the biggest job of his career so far.
The full-time whistle at Goodison Park on Saturday brought a familiar ringing to the ears of Everton’s players. Aston Villa had arrived there off the back of three consecutive defeats during which they’d shipped 11 goals. Everton’s performance in their previous game against Leeds United had again hinted that an injection of Dyche grade steel into their collective backbone might yield the results they need to ensure another season of Premier League football, but familiar ghosts revealed themselves again as Villa coasted to a comfortable 2-0 win.
One move in the first half seemed to sum up so many of their issues. The score was still goalless when Dwight McNeil was put in down the middle by an excellent pass from Alex Iwobi. For about a tenth of a second it looked like McNeil might be through on goal, but instead he momentarily paused and checked inside. With defenders starting to close in around him, he passed sideways to Neal Maupay, whose weak shot was comfortably saved by Emi Martinez.
How different might their afternoon have turned out had McNeil not taken that pass in his stride and thumped Everton into the lead? Everybody knows that Goodison Park can feel like a tinderbox at times, a ground that can become a huge fireworks display or a raging house fire at any point.
The lift that comes with the former can be audibly enervating, and the reaction of Everton’s players to those vast swells of noise against Arsenal was telling. They played as though visibly lifted by that reaction and by the end of that game the result felt like something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, even against the Premier League leaders.
But there again were those insecurities, laid bare again against Aston Villa. That nanosecond of hesitation followed by very rapidly finding himself in a dead end road. The pass back to another player who simply isn’t a great scorer of a goals, and a thoroughly predictable side-footed shot, far too close to the goalkeeper to cause him any significant discomfort.
No-one wants to consider themselves to be a Proper Football Man, but sometimes you just can’t help but shout, “PUT YOUR LACES THROUGH IT!” at such a moment. It was a move bereft of the confidence required to score goals at this level of the game.
Its’s fair to say that the four matches of Sean Dyche’s tenure…
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