Thanks for joining me once more for chapter 5 of my Everton series. If you missed chapter 4 please click here or if you are completely new to this series then please click here to be able to view all of the previous posts.
Pre Season
Going into this season, it was just over 29 years since Everton had last won a trophy, by the end of the season, which is where trophies are generally won, it would be over 30 years. This drought had gone on for far to long, we have made real improvements over the 2 seasons I have had in charge and finished last season strongly, could we take that momentum into this year and finally end the drought?
The season started with good news for the fans, unpopular chairman Bill Kenwright retired and was replaced by Terry Williams. The owner was still Farhad Moshiri so there was no change to the clubs finances but a different person was taking on the role of chairman.
At the end of the last post I had made the decision to change my recruitment model, we were going to make less signings than previous windows but were happy to spend more money on individual players.
Two big signings came in over the summer and I’ll start off by telling you about the biggest of the two. Alex Iwobi started well under my tenure but has faded, he has joined West Ham on loan but they have an obligation to sign him at the end of the year, the loan fee and transfer fee will come to just over £18million. With Iwobi leaving a first team replacement was needed, the man I got has been linked with some of the biggest clubs in Europe during the current transfer window in real life. Arriving for £32.5m from French side Nice was Khephren Thuram, the son of French legend Lilian Thuram. He’s a real machine but also has great technical ability and should provide much needed goals from midfield. He’s easily our best player and I see this signing as bit of a coup.
In the previous window I found it difficult to upgrade on Ben Godfrey due to the £10m limit, with that gone I was able to find a replacement and I did so from Godfrey’s former club Norwich. They had just been relegated back to the Championship (shock) and I took advantage of Andrew Omobamidele’s £23m relegation release clause. I didn’t think he was going to sign as PSG were also in for him but it showed that he’s got good character as he chose first team football over money. He’s quick, tall, good in the tackle and has the composure to play out from the back. He will be my first choice centre back on the right, partnering Jarrad Branthwaite. Godfrey signed for Fulham for £12.75m.
Although I made no other big signings, there were still 3 more changes to my first team squad. You’ll remember that Jordan Pickford was about to leave on a free, well it turns out he didn’t leave on a free but he still left. A month before his contract expired I thought I might as well offer him out for the £1.6m he was now valued at. Newly promoted Blackburn met his valuation and off he went. This transfer makes zero sense, he wanted to leave for a bigger club, we’ve got into Europe and he’s signed for Blackburn who no disrespect to them are not as big as Everton. I’ve never actually seen a player who has said he wants to explore his options when his contract is expiring change their mind and sign a new deal. This feels very much like a bug to me, definitely in this instance. But anyway regardless of whether it was a bug or not, I now strongly dislike Jordan Pickford and guess what? *SPOILER ALERT* Blackburn finished bottom and were relegated straight back to the Championship. Pickford let in 104 goals in 38 games…tuck in you prick!
Replacing him was Austrian Niklas Hedl who I had signed the previous summer but loaned back to Rapid Wien, he is a decent keeper who will get better and is ready to be my number one.
Since signing last summer for £5m José Hurtado had done ok at best, when Red Bull Salzburg bid £11.25m for him I decided to take the money. Another of last summers signings Timothée Pembélé, £750k from PSG, had done exceptional on loan at Preston in the Championship, I felt he had earned the step up and replaced the out going Hurtado.
The final signing for the first team was due to a cock up from myself, I’d been so focused on homegrown by club players I sold to many homegrown by nation players meaning I had to sign one as the back up keeper. Mark Travers arrived from Bournemouth for £600k, hopefully he doesn’t have to play!
A trio of youngsters also signed with the idea of them having loan spells before working their way into the first team squad in the future.
Justin Janitzek signs on a free after being released by Bayern, he will spend the season on loan at Tenerife with the idea that he will take over as my back up left sided centre back in a year or two.
Jovan Šljivić is an exciting midfielder and arrives for £3.5m from Crvena zvezda, he joins Luton Town on loan to get some experience in the Championship.
Finally, young goalkeeper Jasper Torkildsen leaves Norweigan side Start for the blue half of Merseyside. Unfortunately no one would loan him in the summer so he became my domestic cup goalie for the season. As he had played for both Start and Everton he couldn’t join a third side in January.
With the incomings covered off, I’ll now run through some of the outgoings that I haven’t mentioned yet. Dwight McNeil returned from his loan at Brentford and went straight back down south to Watford this time on a permanent deal for £21m. Fellow winger Julián Fernández returned from West Brom and signed for Olympiakos for £10.5m.
Two youngsters who had been out on loan were Reece Welch and Stan Mills, neither looked like being anywhere near good enough for me so I decided to sell. Both had values I didn’t think would be met but both were. Welch moved to Brentford for £11m with Mills signing for Palace for £9m. I’m not complaining but I really didn’t understand these moves, am I missing something?
Anyway, that’s enough about transfers, before I get onto our pre season form, lets cover off the new stadium. We officially moved in before the season started and it will hold 52,888 supporters, hopefully we can give them something to cheer about!
Pre season went really really well, we won all 7 games only conceding 1 goal. We put 7 past Standard Liège the week before the season kicked off and Lorenzo Colombo scored 9 goals in the last 2 games, was this a sign of things to come?
The Premier League
Last year we finished 7th but we were only 5 points off the top four. This years aim was a top four finish which I felt was achievable with our new additions and taking into consideration the slow start we made last season.
This year we got off to a flyer winning our first 4 games including a 1-0 away win at Chelsea, Donyell Malen scoring in every game. We did end August with defeat however, a late Loftus-Cheek goal securing the 3 points for United when we went to Old Trafford. We bounced back with 2 home wins in September before an away loss at Spurs. Having won 6 of our first 8 games I was still really pleased and we were on track for a high finish.
Next up was Man City at home, a huge test. We won 6-1, who saw that coming? It was one of those days where everything just clicked and the xG stats backed up that it was a thoroughly deserved win. With that win behind us it was time to really pick up some momentum which is exactly what we did. The issue was it wasn’t the momentum we wanted as we suffered succesive away defeats at Villa and Brighton. October had started with our best result of the season so far but ended as our worst month to date.
Having got those bad runs out of our system we regrouped and went again. During November and December we played 10 games, we won 7 and drew 3, an incredible run of form. We now sat 3rd in the league, 5 points off top and with a 6 point buffer to the Europa League places. We were now in a position where unexpectedly we were part of the title race, could we keep it going in the second half of the season?
By this point across all competitions left back Aarón had 12 assists, Colombo had 13 goals and Bundgaard 9 goals. Bundgaard had struggled last season but was now really kicking on, my decision to stick with him was paying dividends.
Following our good start I decided to ask the board for some requests. Firstly to improve our training facilities and they duly obliged. Secondly for another affiliate club, French club Valenciennes were chosen. It’s always good to take advantage when you’ve got momentum on your side.
Tomás Pozzo had been very average over the last 18 months and was easily the worst of my attacking options. When my scouts told me Roony Bardghji was available for just £8.75m I snapped him straight up. This deal was sorted a week before the window opened, the day before the window opened Pozzo did his cruciate ruling him out for the season, the deal had been done just in time! I also made one other deal just before the deadline shut, Anthony Gordon is completely out of favour at Newcastle but they want £30m for him which I just aren’t willing to spend. He’s way better than my homegrown by club options but still not good enough for my first 11, he joins on loan and I hope his asking price will reduce in the future.
Back to the football and we weren’t about to let up. Four wins from four in January without conceding a goal. One result stood out above them all, not the 6-0 hammering of Fulham but the completion of the double over Man City, a 2-0 win at the Etihad. Khephren Thuram dominated the midfield, he’d started slow but was improving by the game and was now showing why we’d paid the money we did.
Into February and a 4-2 win over Palace kept our run going before it came to an end as we lost 3-2 at the Emirates. We’d gone 15 games unbeaten, winning 12 of them, we’d gone top at one point but were now in 2nd, teams were starting to take us seriously. A 3-2 win at Wolves got us back on track but we then lost at Leicester and were down to third but still not far off top. A win over Southampton ended the month and we only played 1 league game in March, a draw in the Merseyside derby. April started with a 1-0 win over Brighton and with six games to go we were back in 2nd. We were just 1 point off Newcastle who were top but tied with 3rd placed Man City. Liverpool in 4th had too big of a gap to make up, there was a 3 way title race that looked like it would go down to the wire.
Man City surprisingly then drew at Southampton, giving us the chance to build a gap. The issue was we were playing top of the table Newcastle and at St James’ Park. An early Donyell Malen goal gave us the lead at half time but Allan Saint-Maximin equalised just after the break and it looked like momentum would switch but we didn’t let it happen, instead scoring twice in quick succession to secure all 3 points. What a win, we were now top with 5 to play.
We then won at West ham but Newcastle faced Man City, this time the Geordies came out on top. City failed to win the following week and were out of it, it was between us and the Toon with 4 to go. In the next 2 game weeks we both picked up back to back victories, leaving us still 2 ahead with 2 to go. We both were in the capital, we had Brentford and they had Chelsea. They lost 2-0 where as we won 2-1! We’d done it, champions against all odds and we’d done so with a game to spare! What a season it had been, the big sides had been off it and we’d taken full advantage, comfortably surpassing our aim of a top 4 finish.
Jarrad Branthwaite secured the PFA young play of the year award, he’s been a colossus since returning from PSV 24 months ago. He’s an absolute monster from set pieces scoring 17 goals in all competitions. I also secured the PFA manager of the year award. Four players were selected in the PFA team of the year, my centre back pairing of Branthwaite and Omobamidele, my midfield general Khephren Thuram and my main man up top Lorenzo Colombo. To see both of my big signings in there shows that the change of transfer policy was the right one.
The FA Cup
Could we secure the double? No. We made hard work of beating Bromley in the 3rd round before losing to Spurs in round 4. No cup glory here.
The League Cup
We started with back to back Premier League opposition, scraping past Fulham on penalties before beating Leeds. This put us into the quarter finals where you expect the opposition to get tougher. Bottom of the Championship Peterborough awaited and it took an 85th minute winner to beat them. In the semis we then had League One Wigan, again we were far from convincing but we’d made it to a cup final without ever really having to get out of second gear.
We faced Chelsea at Wembley, a good side but we were a fair away ahead of them in the league by this point and I really fancied us to end our trophy drought. We were 3-0 up after 20 minutes and completely out of sight, Khephren Thuram bossed the game from start to finish and by this point was the best player on the pitch nearly every week. We went on to win 4-0 and end our trophy drought, the Premier League was actually us securing a double!
Europa League
We couldn’t make it a treble could we?
The new format makes qualification for the knockouts almost inevitable for an English side. We won 7 out of 8, only losing at home to Red Bull Leipzig. We finished 2nd out of 36 behind Spurs who won all 8 of their games.
We faced Shakhtar in the round of 16 and lost the away game 3-2, back on Merseyside we looked to be going out with the game 0-0 after 75 minutes before 2 big Jarrad Branthwaite headers from set pieces set up a quarter final tie with Eintracht Frankfurt.
This time we were at home first and with the crowd behind us produced an exceptional performance to win 4-1, Branthwaite again scoring twice. I made 11 changes for the second leg as it was sandwiched in between 2 important Premier League games and after leading 2-0 at the break, lost 3-2 on the night but still progressed comfortably into the semi finals.
The only side we lost to in the group stage was Red Bull Leipzig and that was who we would face. At home first we made sure there was no repeat of that, a Donyell Malen hattrick sent us on our way to a 6-0 victory. We followed this up with a 2-0 win in Germany and booked ourselves a flight to Bilbao for the final against Feyenoord.
Since joining in January Roony Bardghji has been exceptional, he tends to leave the scoring to Malen and Colombo but he does the setting up, getting 12 assists in total. This time it was his turn to score, putting us ahead inside 8 minutes. That man Thuram made it 2 before a Feyenoord penalty made it 2-1 at the break. It was a tense second half but Colombo let us breath easier with an 85th minute strike. Thuram then wrapped it up scoring a double for the second time in a cup final this season. We had done it! A treble secured, what a season it had been.
Squad Review
Khephren Thuram was without doubt the player of the season, 15 goals and 14 assists from midfield, take note Alex Iwobi. Up top Lorenzo Colombo took his game to a new level scoring 32 goals, he is now a fully fledged Italian international, I can’t believe I only paid £3.6m for him.
The bit that makes me most happy about this squad is that I’ve been able to sort out the wage discrepancies versus playing time except 1 for player. Mason Holgate is a squad player but earns £80k per week, fortunately his contract is up and he’s leaving which will make my squad wage list look much better, yes I’m a geek! (I’ve left Gordon off as he’s a loan player)
The youth intake was again a bit Meh! Nugent and Olofsson the stand outs for me but I don’t feel they’ll ever reach our level.
What next?
We have just won the Premier League with a wage bill £300k less than the one I inherited, the debt is on the way down and we are in the new stadium. I feel I’ve achieved what I set out to do and will therefore be leaving this save here. Thanks for reading along.
Cheers
The Last Throw.
LutterworthFox 
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