Everton 2019-20 Season: Three Negatives

In a season that brought tons of disappointment and frustration, it was tough to pick just three, but here are some of the negatives that Everton surely look to improve on as they head into the 2020-21 season.

Midfield Woes

Photo by Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images

This is really a no-brainer. The biggest issue that the Toffees faced all season was the midfield. In fairness, Marco Silva did try and fix the issue by bringing in Jean-Philippe Gbamin before the season and was hoping André Gomes would not be injured shortly into the season, but it still was hard to watch.

Defensively, there was a large hole that was left behind by Idrissa Gueye when he left for Paris Saint-Germain and none of the healthy Everton midfielders were able to fill the void. Gbamin would have, ideally, been that replacement, but with him injured, none of the Everton midfield showed the same desire to put in a tackle that Gueye showed and it often left the back four out to dry.

Offensively, it might have been even worse. After Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, the next highest scorer on the team was Bernard with just three goals. The midfield did not create nearly enough chances either as only ten of the 32 assists recorded this season came from Everton midfielders.

All around, the midfield was not nearly creative enough and didn’t provide enough of a defensive presence to be effective and that is a big part of why the club is looking to bolster that area this window.

Jordan Pickford’s Blunders

Photo by BEN STANSALL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Now, this was something that we have, unfortunately, grown to know too well. The hope was that the 2018-19 season would just be a one-off for the England No. 1, but it seems that the problem may have got worse. While only four errors directly led to goals, they still seem to happen a lot more than you would like.

It also seems like the young goalkeeper isn’t too bothered by the mistakes and has a kind of nonchalant feeling towards the errors with smiling at the camera and laughing off blunders that could have or did lead to costly goals.

No matter what way you look at it, Pickford is not the same goalkeeper he was before and during the 2018 World Cup and it has cost the Toffees more points than we realise. Hopefully, with Ancelotti as manager and another year of criticism, the English goalkeeper will start to shore up his mistakes and get back to top form.

Dropped Points to Bottom Clubs

Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

It feels like we talk about this problem every year, but it is because it is a problem every year. Once again, the Toffees faltered against the bottom clubs this season.

In ten Premier League matches against the bottom five in the league at the end of the campaign, the Toffees won four, drew two and lost four for a total of 16 dropped points.

If you want to extend it to teams that finished beneath Everton in the table, that is another seven dropped points over six more matches for a total of 23 dropped points to clubs that finished behind the Toffees. If Everton were able to win all of those matches, they would have finished in third place with 72 points.

Now, let’s be honest with ourselves, there was a slim chance they would win all of those games, so let’s figure the club wins about three-quarters of those games. That’s 16 points and a fifth-placed finish, one point behind Manchester United and Chelsea who finished third and fourth respectively with 66 points each.

In the end, the point is that Everton need to beat the teams they are better than. That’s how you have a successful season, especially with the club’s awful away form against the top six. If they can improve on that alone, next year will be a good one.