Everton has secured a top-seven finish and a place in the Europa League but while that seems to make it a season to remember it may actually be a finish that Ronald Koeman’s side comes to regret.
The Merseyside club has often struggled to attract the best talent during transfer windows, leaving it to sign players who excel at smaller clubs such as Gareth Barry and Morgan Schneiderlin. The problem with that sort of recruiting strategy is that it leaves Everton short of the type of players who can help the club to compete for the top six places. Season after season, the Blues have had a couple of strong performers who they sell as soon as they receive a reasonable offer in the transfer window.
This season Everton has had several youngsters burst onto the scene and make the club proud but they’re not the type of personnel you need if you want to challenge for a top four place, which Everton was doing during the days of David Moyes. Ever since the success under the Scotsman, Everton has failed to get a flow of transfers or a consistent manager in place. Moyes was able to get the best out of average players but since that that group of players left Everton has struggled to rebuild until this current campaign.
The rebuilding process has finally clicked this season with standout players like Romelu Lukaku and Ross Barkley earning a lot of positive attention. The club has often been forced to sell their best players and I have no doubt that will happen again this summer with Lukaku in particular being lined up by some of Europe’s elite teams. Unfortunately for the Blues they would have no choice but to sell him if an offer of £50 million or more came in.
Such a trade would leave Everton with a handy war chest to make its own purchases but there is a limited line-up of forwards who are available and want to move to Merseyside and fight it out in the Europa League. The reality is that not many gifted forwards would have Everton as their favoured destination. You would argue that seventh is exactly where Everton belongs judging by the edge it enjoys over the teams below it and the gulf in spending power it suffers when compared to the much richer clubs above it. That leaves you questioning just how far The Toffees can actually go.
The big Belgian’s exit is imminent and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the likes of Barkley and one or two others exit with him, leaving Koeman and Everton with a decent sum of cash but nowhere to spend it. Koeman’s ambitions are much higher than the standards that have come to be accepted at a club that last squeaked into the top four 2005 and 1988 but the future seems to hold only frustration for him.
The club needs to find a long-term fix if it is to escape its current status of being behind the Big Clubs but better than the rest. As things stand it will continue to be bled of talent by richer clubs at home and abroad, and unless there are some major changes I expect the club to be in seventh place again next season.
by Nubaid Haroon YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCtMg-fWm7awR41vM1GhVOkA Twitter: twitter.com/rambofyi
The post Football: Is an Everton Crumble Coming? appeared first on Felix Magazine.
No comments:
Post a Comment