Ronald Koeman under immense pressure at Everton

Four loses out of seven in the league despite having spent £145 million pounds in the summer, Ronald Koeman needs to fix the issues at Everton.

Boos followed the final whistle after Burnley defeated Everton 1-0 on Sunday which saw Everton’s fourth Premier league loss out of seven already and just above the relegation zone. The boos from the Everton faithful were obvious, they had witnessed yet another lacklustre performance from their team despite the club spending £145 million in the summer to upgrade the team.

The performances in the league wouldn’t be too worrying, given how tough their opening schedule was, if it didn’t also happen to feature similar lacklustre results in the Europa League as well. A 3-0 loss to Atalanta and a 2-2 draw to Apollon in Europe were extremely disappointing results and Everton should be performing better. It was long-expected going into the new season that Everton at best could finish seventh while attempting to knock on the doors of the top six, maybe even potentially breaking into the top six if one of them had a poor season, but it doesn’t look to be the case at all yet.

Koeman is facing the pressure at the moment, there is already sections of the Everton crowd that want him to go although it does feel a little too early to sack him altogether but he is going to have to take blame and fix things radically soon. While some of Everton’s newer players may need time to gel and find chemistry with each other, Koeman’s tactics and team selections have been puzzling – playing two defensive midfielders against Burnley and deploying Sigurdsson on the wing in a position that he is not suited too and does not get the best out of him.

It’s almost puzzling in a way, why did he feel the need to play with two defensive midfielders against Burnley? Why is he being so defensive and negative against them? That is of course with all due respect to Burnley, who have performed brilliantly this season and deserved their win, but they are not the type of team that Everton should be negative against.

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It’s a problem Koeman needs to fix but it’s also a problem that will be hard to fix before the transfer window opened – Everton desperately need a striker to replace the goals Romelu Lukaku got for them last season. Lukaku netted twenty-five goals last season, that is going to be a big task for Everton to fill and Wayne Rooney is not the type of player anymore to do that. Is Sandro? It’s puzzling how Koeman did not look for a proper striker to come into the club to replace Lukaku, and moving Sigurdsson to the wing is equally baffling when Tottenham attempted to do the exact same thing years ago and the results then didn’t go well, why did he think it would now?

More money will have to be spent in the winter transfer window on somebody who can score goals but that is still a long ways away. Everton look toothless going forward and aren’t exactly impressive in defence either, with Ashley Williams being years past his best and should not be playing at a club that is aspiring for European spots. Regardless, Koeman is under immense pressure and he’ll have to fix this out soon before he finds himself on the unemployment line.

It isn’t the first time Koeman has found himself in this position, it’s a similar position to the one he found himself at when he was manager at Valencia with a team that consisted of Juan Mata, David Silva and David Villa – a much stronger team than what he has at Everton and almost find himself relegated. Only time will tell if he has learned from his previous mistakes and while he may have gotten a vote of confidence from Everton’s owners, that won’t last long unless he turns things around.