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With this final report card here we’re closing out our review of Everton’s 2019-20 season. Over the last few weeks we’ve looked back at how the season unfolded for the Blues, surfing highs and plumbing lows, looking at our best games and listing our worst games, grading the players in different positional groups and reviewing our transfer needs.
All the pieces in the season review series can be found here in one place - Everton 2019-20 Season Review, and in case you needed any reminding on how the season unfolded, here’s the Everton’s 2019-20 Season | A month-by-month look back. Click on the headers below to read the in-depth report cards.
2019-20 Everton Report Cards: Goalkeeper
It’s hard to be anything but scathing towards Jordan Pickford who has really regressed to Sunderland form it feels like. If he wants to continue being England’s #1, Pickford will have to do better than the C performance he put in last season.
2019-20 Everton Report Cards: Centre-backs
Hard to be overly-positive about a group of defenders who gave up goals by the handful, but also under the circumstances there is some positivity in the futures of Mason Holgate, Yerry Mina, Michael Keane and Jarrad Branthwaite - we’ll give them a B-.
2019-20 Everton Report Cards: Fullbacks
We’re going to need more new faces with two of the quartet of Lucas Digne, Seamus Coleman, Leighton Baines and Djibril Sidibe not here next season. For last season though, the group gets a C grade, balancing out some atrocious defending with some offensive excellence.
2019-20 Everton Report Cards: Central Midfield
A total revamp is needed in the middle of the park for the Blues this summer, with the group of Gylfi Sigurdsson, André Gomes, Tom Davies, Fabian Delph and Morgan Schneiderlin getting an F for the season.
2019-20 Everton Report Cards: Wingers
The Blues simply did not get enough from this critical group of Bernard, Alex Iwobi, Theo Walcott and Anthony Gordon, both in the creativity and goals departments. We handed them a big fat C.
2019-20 Everton Report Cards: Strikers
Formerly an area of weakness, the group of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Richarlison, Moise Kean and Cenk Tosun are looking quite strong now and get a B+ grade.
2019-20 Everton Report Cards: Manager Carlo Ancelotti
Carlo Magnifico might be wondering what he has signed himself up for at times, but he is off to a decent enough start stabilizing this football club, bringing in his veteran nous and getting a deserved A-.
2019-20 Everton Report Cards: Director of Football Marcel Brands
Entering the last year of his three-year contract, there’s still lots to be done, but we give him a B for the season.
Grade: C
Results mean everything. So no matter what level of progress we have made as a club on and off the pitch, developmentally and structurally, at the end of the day where we finish in the Premier League table and in the Cup competitions is basically where we are as a football club.
And right now, after a 12th placed finish which you might have heard ad nauseam is the lowest we have finished since the 2003-04 season, it’s hard to say that the Blues deserve even a passing grade.
Still, the Blues now have a generational coaching talent in at manager, have a young core of players in a number of positions but still have work to do in offloading big wages and strengthening some key areas of the squad. All that said, a fair overall grade for the Everton season would be a solid C.