The Expert: Have Everton sufficiently improved under Koeman?
How long does a manager have? Patience is in short supply in modern football. The year or two that a Don Revie or a Brian Clough were granted to turn their clubs around - let alone the five Sir Alex Ferguson was allowed - is a distant memory and the demand is always for instant success. Whether that is fair or not depends largely on context, but what is clear is that Ronald Koeman is under pressure.
After a fine start to the season in which they took 13 points from five games, Everton have won just one of their last 10 in the league as well as going out of the League Cup to Norwich. Everton did suffer a similar run in the league towards the end of last season, by which time it had become obvious that Roberto Martinez was on the way out, but even that was leavened by progress to the semi-final of the FA Cup. Martinez’s defenders would point out that he also took Everton to the semi-final of the League Cup. At this stage of last season, Everton had two more points than they do now. So how does Koeman’s side stack up against Martinez’s?
This season, Everton are both scoring and conceding at a rate of 1.3 goals per game. Last season they scored 1.6 goals per game and conceded 1.6. That’s not a great surprise: Martinez’s problem through his career has been his inability to craft a solid defence.
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Sure enough, shots conceded per game have dropped significantly from last season to this, from 14.6 to 11.9. Tackles have gone up slightly and interceptions down, but the more significant statistic is probably the increase in the number of times Everton have caught the opposition offside, up from 1.4 to 2.4. Koeman’s defence is better drilled than Martinez’s - it steps up and plays higher.
Everton also win a lot more aerials per game this season (17.7) than they did last (12.9), something that is a little difficult to explain given accurate long balls have actually gone down fractionally. Although Martinez preached a doctrine of short passing and played 6% more passes per game than Koeman’s side does, there’s been no great change in the ratio of balls played long: 15.3% under Martinez as opposed to 16.9% under Koeman.
But what’s also striking is how little difference there is in other metrics: shots per game, shots on target per game and pass success rate have all barely changed since the Martinez days and that’s despite significant investment in the summer, with pretty much all the £47m they recovered for the sale of John Stones going on Yannick Bolasie, Ashley Williams and Idrissa Gueye. Williams and Gueye, perhaps, have contributed to the defensive improvement - and Bolasie is out for the season with a cruciate injury - but for goals Everton remain heavily reliant on Romelu Lukaku, who has scored nine of their 19 goals so far.
The doubts play into wider questions about Koeman as a manager, and the lingering suspicion that he may not have kept getting the chances he has were he not Ronald Koeman. His most successful stint was his first in the Netherlands as he won two league titles and the Cup with a remarkable Ajax side that included the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Mido, Rafael van der Vaart and Steven Pienaar.
He also won a league title with PSV but other than that his only silverware has been a Copa del Rey with Valencia in a spell when he generally disappointed. His win percentages look good - higher than 50% at Vitesse, Ajax, Benfica, PSV and Feyenoord, and 48% with Southampton, but there’s an odd sense, almost 17 years into his managerial career, that he remains an unknown quantity.
But what is known is that frustration is mounting at Goodison Park and that a 33.3% win percentage won’t cut it.
Koeman proved at Southampton, with a mediocre squad, that his plans start with a solid defence. That alone will make Everton better in the long run under him than they would've been under Martinez. I also think it's funny how this article intimates Koeman won the Dutch league with Ajax primarily because of personnel when the same can be said of Guardiola at Barcelona & Bayern, but isn't. All you need to do is look at Southampton under Ronald's tenure to see how good a manager he is. Sold their best player(s) yet still had their top 2 EPL finishes. You can also judge a manager by their signings, here are Koeman's best ones at the Saints: Forster, Bertrand, van Dijk, Soares, Romeu, Clasie, Tadic, Mane, Pelle and Austin for £95m. Mane and Pelle were sold for a £26m profit and the others have market values roughly double what they were signed for by the Saints. Everton's problems aren't Koeman's doing but he will eventually sort them out if he is given time.
@SteveHyland There's no solid defence when it's Stekelenburg in goal, not sure if he will still be given a chance if the coach isn't a Dutch. I admire that Koeman is decisive and brave enough to drop Barkley, whose decision making is poor, but if he can't sort out a reliable attacking style without him, I would rather rely on Barkley's individual brilliance.