ALLARDYCE’S EVERTON: A TEAM OF BIG SHOTS WHO END UP HAVING NO SHOTS!
ANOTHER away game, another defeat. Everton have now lost five in a row on the road and the most concerning trend is that they rarely looked like scoring. Away from Goodison Park Sam Allardyce’s team are struggling for chances and shots; during this desperately poor game, they had two on target — and one of those from Oumar Niasse was intended as a cross. Watford captain Troy Deeney provided the only goal of the game on 79 minutes with a smart first touch inside the penalty area and an explosive finish into the roof of the goal. For his manager Javi Gracia it was a second consecutive home win after the demolition of Chelsea and Watford are now six points clear of the drop zone in 10th place. Everton are one place above Watford and safely in the top half but thoughts are beginning to turn to next season and the Goodison boardroom will be considering whether Allardyce is the best coach to carry this team onwards. This is a peculiar group of players and the result of haphazard recruitment. Allardyce is not responsible for what went before but surely he should be getting them to play better than this. Everton’s starting line-up boasted £152.5million-worth of talent — more expensive than the fees paid by Tottenham for the players in the XI that drew against Juventus — and the feeling persists that Allardyce should be extracting more from a team that featured the talents of Wayne Rooney, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Theo Walcott. Here, however, Rooney and Sigurdsson were reduced to menial tasks, with the former sitting deep in a 4-1-4-1 formation and the latter tracking back against the threat of Watford’s Gerard Deulofeu. The second-half arrival of £27m January signing Cenk Tosun did little to improve Everton’s fortunes. Asked if he felt his players were being granted the necessary freedom to thrive, Allardyce bristled. ‘They get the ball and
pass it, not me,’ he said. ‘So, if you get the ball and move it forward to one of your front men, they get in the game and attack the other team’s defence. But you can’t blame me if they don’t pass the ball to each other.’ In their previous four away games Everton had two shots on target in the 5-1 defeat at Arsenal, zero shots on target in a 4-0 loss at Tottenham and one shot on target in reverses at Liverpool and Bournemouth. It is a miserable rut and it should be said that the away troubles precede Allardyce’s tenure. Everton have won only one of their previous 22 Premier League away games. After this one Allardyce ruled out recruiting a sports psychologist to improve his side’s mentality and steel on the road. But he did agree that such a costly sum of players ought to be performing better: ‘Yes, I would say the players need to be dealing with it more for the money we’ve paid for them. ‘We got a disappointing result today but we’ve still got the opportunity to stay in the top half of the table and then I’d say y it’s been a decent season.’ WATFORD (4-3-3): Karnezis 7; Janmaat 6, Prodl 6, Mariappa 6, Holebas 7; Doucoure 7, , Capoue 6, Pereyra 5.5 (Okaka 56min, 5.5); Deulofeu 6.5 (Carrillo 63, 6), DEENEY 7.5, Richarlison 5 (Femenia 56, 6). Subs not used: Gomes, Britos, Gray, Zeegelaar. Scorer: Deeney 79. Booked: Capoue. Janmaat, Carrillo. Manager: Javi Gracia 6.5. EVERTON (4-1-4-1): Pickford 6; Kenny 6.5, Keane 6, Williams 6, Martina 6; Gueye 7; Walcott 5, Rooney 6.5 (Calvert-Lewin 82), Davies 6.5, Sigurdsson 6 (Bolasie 82); Niasse 6 (Tosun 56, 6). Subs not used: Robles, Schneiderlin, Holgate, Garbutt. Booked: Gueye. Manager: Sam Allardyce 5.5. Referee: Anthony Taylor 6. Attendance: 20,430.