End could be nigh for Toffees boss Koeman
There is every possibility this could be Ronald Koeman’s final week in charge of Everton.
Back in August, that prospect was unthinkable because the Dutchman was being universally touted as the man most likely to break up the cosy six-club cartel at the top of the Premier League.
Thanks to the investment of major shareholder, Farhad Moshiri, he had been given unprecedented funds – more than £140m – to make it happen.
He’d shattered the club’s transfer record for Gylfi Sigurdsson. He’d brought Wayne Rooney back. He’d signed the brightest of young English prospects in Michael Keane and Jordan Pickford. What could possibly go wrong? However, if Koeman loses at Brighton today, is still bottom of his Europa League group after Thursday’s match against Lyon and is defeated at Arsenal next Sunday, then the club will probably have no option but to fire him.
Of course, three wins and we’ll wonder what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately, there’s been little to suggest they have that sort of response in them.
Peter Reid, one of the legends of Howard Kendall’s two-time Champions of the 1980s, has raised doubts about the character of the current squad.
“The team I was in could scrap,” he said. “I am not sure this team can.”
Both Koeman and Moshiri have claimed it was unrealistic to expect Everton to challenge the top four, despite the biggest spending spree in the club’s history.
That’s probably true. But an improvement on their customary seventh position was a legitimate expectation, given that they spent more than Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham.
Instead, they’ve lost four of their opening seven League games and, in the Europa League, were beaten 3-0 by Atalanta and drew at home against 10-man Cypriot minnows, Apollon Limassol.
Moshiri has pleaded for time for the new signings. But, in truth, it’s looked like if you add Rooney, Sigurdsson, Pickford, Keane, Davy Klaassen, Sandro, Nikola Vlasic and Henry Onyekuru together, it doesn’t make up for one Romelu Lukaku.
The failure to replace the Belgian has been the single most-significant factor in Everton’s struggles.
Koeman has lots of players to fill the No. 10 role, but none to be the No. 9. Such has been the lack of planning, that he’s been forced to play Oumar Niasse, who was told to find a new club in the summer.
Apart from missing Lukaku’s goals, the team has also been left with a chronic lack of pace. That’s fatal in the modern Premier League.
So now Koeman faces the severest test yet of his management career. After impressing at Southampton, and again in his first season at Everton, he’d even been earmarked as a future Barcelona boss.
That looks a long way away at the moment. So does seventh place!