Everton dreaming again after fast start

Koeman getting the best out of the club’s strongest squad in a generation

With his “head teacher” aura and astute off-season recruitment, Ronald Koeman is making an immediate impact at Everton and getting the best out of the club’s strongest squad in a generation.

It might be time for the blue half of Merseyside to start dreaming again, three decades after its trophy-laden heyday.

Koeman, a highly respected ex-Netherlands and Barcelona defender, was lured from Southampton in June and has guided Everton to its best five-game start to a league campaign in 38 years. With a draw and four consecutive wins, Everton is in second place, behind Manchester City, in the EPL standings going into a game at 17th-place Bournemouth tomorrow.

English football is already looking for the next team to “do a Leicester” and rise from nowhere to win the Premier League. Maybe it’s Everton’s turn, although Koeman has warned against any comparisons with the current champions. “Normally, we can’t win the title. I think what Leicester did last season was an exception,” Koeman said. “I am realistic. If I tell you we will fight for the title, I think most people will say, ‘That man is crazy.’”

That winning the title is even in the conversation around Goodison Park is testament to work being done by Koeman, who appears to be at a club going places after its disappointing 11th-place finish last season.

Ambition has soared at Everton since Iranian-British businessman Farhad Moshiri became its majority shareholder in February. With greater financial power under Moshiri, Everton spent around $50 million on Yannick Bolasie and Ashley Williams, and almost broke its club record to sign Moussa Sissoko before he had a late change of heart and joined Tottenham.