Multiple years of poor recruitment. Managerial upheaval. A lack of distinct direction.
All factors in making Everton a muddled mess of a club.
Sunday’s 1-0 defeat to Brentford made it a seventh straight league match without a win heading into the visit of arch-rivals Liverpool on Wednesday night.
And right now, the Blues’ neighbours are everything Everton aren’t.
At Anfield, there’s a clear alignment from top to bottom, a distinct style in play and a settled management structure that isn’t forever seemingly just two defeats away from crisis.
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Liverpool’s resources mean replicating their success is always a near-impossible task, though implementing a similar blueprint isn’t.
Everton’s hierarchy should have decided a long time ago on both a philosophy and style of play they wanted to implement, and then a manager should have been identified and recruited who was capable of delivering it.
From there, a clear recruitment plan should have been formulated, identifying profiles capable of implementing that style of play successfully.
Once these foundations have been instilled, it becomes much easier to build and maintain a competitive side.
Everton however have brought in one manager, then changed him for a completely different one, only to switch direction once again.
During these ill-fated stints, fluctuating managerial styles have dedicated how the club play, who they recruit and the amount of money they’ve spent when doing so.
Over time, this chaotic approach has assembled the jumbled-up squad we see in 2021. And the cost of building this unenviable group means there’s no more money in the bank - as a result of FFP - to fix it.
It’s therefore little wonder why the team can’t seem to perform coherently on a weekly basis, especially with key players missing.
If we begrudgingly use Liverpool again as the example, when they lose key players through injuries or suspension, they tend to have similar replacements ready in most positions, thanks to having a specific profile of player in which to target when recruiting.
For example the club brought in Konstantinos Tsimikas as cover for key marauding left-back Andy Robertson just over 12 months ago.
Both players share similar traits meaning Liverpool can avoid the need for any disruptive tactical adaptations when the Greek international plays instead of the Scottish star.
At Everton, it often feels like no two players are the same, even when they’re expected to play similar positions. And we saw how problematic that can be on Sunday against Brentford.
In the match, Everton attempted 25 fruitless crosses. The same proved to be the team’s primary method of attack, which with a consistent aerial threat like Dominic Calvert-Lewin, could make sense.
It was, after all, expected that Everton would rely heavily on crosses this year after signing Andros Townsend and Demarai Gray.
However, Calvert-Lewin is of course injured, and his backup Salomon Rondon is far from a like-for-like replacement. Even before he arrived in the summer, it was obvious that as a player he shared few similarities with Everton’s number nine.
In his last full season in the Premier League, he won 30.4% of his aerial duels on average - Calvert-Lewin won 47.5% of his last season.
The Venezuela international is also far slower and less mobile than Calvert-Lewin, meaning he is less capable of adequately leading a front line, especially on his own, like he's expected to do.
It’s therefore no surprise that he was often nowhere near latching onto the multitude of crosses swung into the Brentford penalty area, and it’s not really a shock he’s struggling to score goals given he's playing in a side who aren’t built to play to his strengths.
The above is just one small example from a catalogue of mistakes by Everton that have inevitably led to this point.
It’s impossible for the club to escape the chickens that have finally come home to roost.
Everton fans, the undeserving sufferers of this all, will hope the team can do enough to avoid the ever-growing threat of relegation, though even if they do, expect scrutiny of the club’s faltering hierarchy to both remain and even intensify.
