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It’s over.
Don’t worry.
But what did the numbers tell us about Everton’s latest “performance”?
Penalties
Sigurdsson has scored just 66.6% of his Everton penalties
With Everton 2-0 down at the Etihad, the Blues were offered a lifeline.
But Gylfi Sigurdsson – who was anonymous throughout – couldn’t convert it with his effort comfortably saved by Ederson.
That means he’s now missed four of the 12 penalties he’s taken for Everton, an unimpressive strike rate of just 2 out of 3.
In Premier League history, 83.1% of penalties have been scored, so Gylfi’s numbers just don’t stand up. For further comparison, Everton’s previous penalty taker, Leighton Baines, converted 26 of his 29 penalties for a much more impressive success rate of 89.7%.
It’s time for a new penalty taker for Everton.
Possible penalty candidates include Richarlison (career league success rate: 4/4 = 100%), Dominic Calvert Lewin (career success rate: 3/3 = 100%), Lucas Digne (career success rate: 1/1 = 100%), and James Rodriguez (career success rate: 14/17 = 82.6%).
10th
Progress?
Flashback to the heady days of October when Everton were top of the league after producing a festival of football winning their opening seven games of the season and I think it’s fair to say you would be dismayed to hear that Everton would go on to finish the season in 10th.
On the face of it, Everton have made some progress. After all, 10th is better than last season’s 12th. But it’s fruitless “progress”. After all, the two seasons before we finished 8th. The Blues did pick up ten more points than last season however.
Fade Away
Everton’s worst position all season
What’s all the more frustrating about Everton’s final 10th place finish is that it was the first time all campaign that Blues had dropped so low in the league.
Before this game, Everton’s lowest position throughout the course of the season was 9th.
Everton have finished in 10th place in the Premier League this season. Before today, the lowest position they have been this season was 9th. #EFC
— EFC Statto (@EFC_Statto) May 23, 2021
Nothingness
Another year of… nothing
I went to my first Everton game in February 1996, which was, ironically, a 2-0 win over Man City.
Since then, I’ve seen:
- 0 trophies
- 0 top 3 finishes
- 0 relegations
In all honesty, aside from an early relegation battle in 1997/98 and that year we came fourth (before being swiftly ousted from the Champions League) nothing of note has really happened at Everton. We’ve just been floating in the middle of the Premier League.
Indeed, even to have an outside chance of a “Europa Conference League” place on the final day of the season is the most entertaining season finale Everton have had in six years.
The past seven years have been especially mediocre – even by Everton standards – with the Blues not finishing outside of 7th to 12th position.
Nearly 3 Months
No Blues
A silver lining… we don’t have to watch Everton in competitive action until at least 14th August.
That means we have 83 days to rediscover our Blue-tinted spectacles and convince ourselves that this year might be different. That’s 11 Everton-free weekends.
Enjoy your summer.