Everton have shown big improvement under Ronald Koeman this season, but is the Champions League in their future?
Everton have taken big strides in manager Ronald Koeman’s first season in charge. The Merseyside club sit comfortably in seventh place, and are clearly the best side in the league outside the top six. But do they have what it takes to make a real run at the top four in the near future? Is Koeman the man to oversee a Mauricio Pochettino-style transformation at Goodison Park? In our weekly roundtable, FanSided’s soccer staff debate.
Everton can become a Champions League club
James Dudko, @JamesDudko
Losing the Merseyside derby 3-1 to Liverpool at Anfield has left Everton seventh in the Premier League and eight points off the top four with as many games to go. Given how most of their nearest rivals have at least one game in hand, it doesn’t look like the Toffees will be playing in the Champions League next season.
It’s probably not what fans were hoping for when billionaire Farhad Moshiri assumed part control of the club and Ronald Koeman was appointed manager last summer. Yet Toffees supporters need not despair. The Moshiri and Koeman blueprint will get Everton into the Champions League in the near future.
Such optimism may appear mis-founded given some of the obvious impediments facing Everton’s bid to be involved in Europe’ s premier club competition. The most notable of those obstacles is a new stadium that will come at a predicted cost of around £300 million.
There’s also the not-so small matter of star striker Romelu Lukaku wanting out of the club. Lukaku may have been missing in action against Liverpool, but he’s still the Premier League’s leading goalscorer this season and an outrageously gifted match-winner with the room to get even better.
Selling your best player and trying to rebuild while funding a new stadium is a combination deadly enough to kill any team’s Champions League hopes. Yet the Koeman and Moshiri double act can not only steer Everton through a difficulty period financially. It can also inspire the club to even greater success.
Moshiri’s money won’t just assist with stadium costs, it will also help in replacing Lukaku. After all, Moshiri has already allowed Everton to buy Yannick Bolasie and Morgan Schneiderlin for big money.
Meanwhile, Koeman will play a key role because of his ability to unearth talented players for relatively modest fees. It’s how he got the job with Everton.
Consider his work at Southampton, where the Dutchman recruited the likes of Sadio Mane, Dusan Tadic and Virgil van Dijk. None were widely known when they were signed, but all have become marquee players in England’s top flight. The decision to bring Idrissa Gueye to Goodison Park for £8 million last summer already looks like a typical Koeman masterstroke in the market.
Everton are going to need some more of Koeman’s smart and selective spending to stay competitive while the new stadium is built, even with Moshiri helping to foot the bill.
The Toffees can also rely on their manager’s fidelity to trusting and developing young players. Everton’s starting XI at Anfield showed Koeman’s faith in youth by featuring Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Matthew Pennington and Mason Holgate, all 20, along with 18-year-old Tom Davies.
The Goodison Park production line that’s produced the likes of Leon Osman, Jack Rodwell, Wayne Rooney and Ross Barkley will only increase in importance for a club still unable to match the spending power and draw of Chelsea and the Manchester clubs.
Underpinning smart signings with a foundation of youngsters ready to be developed is how a club punches above its weight and regularly reaches the Champions League. It’s how Everton’s immediate rivals Arsenal have reached the tournament since opening the Emirates Stadium in 2006.
Ironically, the Gunners’ own failings this season, along with the uncertainty surrounding manager Arsene Wenger’s future, is likely to create a regular opening in the top four. Thanks to a savvy manager, a strong squad and the framework to keep building for success, Everton look primed to fill it.
The Toffees can’t make the leap
Pete Johnstone, @9PniJ2
It seems that Everton will always be the Premier League’s nearly club when it comes to Champions League qualification. In recent weeks, the Toffees had been in great form, which led many to believe they might be able to upset their city rivals in the Merseyside derby on Saturday.
Unfortunately for Ronald Koeman, this wasn’t the case, as he saw his side taken apart by a superior Liverpool team. Another game at Anfield Everton haven’t won — you have to go back to 1999 for their last away win in the Merseyside derby.
This game had greater meaning than just the pride of a city as a win for Everton would’ve seen them knocking on the door of the top four alongside Manchester United.
Nobody would have expected Koeman to lead Everton to a top four finish this season, but the Toffees fans must be expecting something in the near future. So can the Dutch manager realistically make Everton a top four club in the next few seasons?
A few years ago Tottenham were in a similar situation, always challenging the top four teams but never finishing in the Champions League positions. Mauricio Pochettino has turned Spurs into title challengers now and this season they look like Chelsea’s closest and most consistent rival.
It’s unlikely Koeman will be able to replicate this. The Toffees have already been dealt a huge blow for next season as Romelu Lukaku has refused to sign a new contract, which will leave an almost irreplaceable gap up front. A top four side needs a 20-goal-a-season striker and while Koeman will replace Lukaku it’s unlikely he’ll find a player of a similar calibre.
Even if he does find the right striker, he’ll have an extremely difficult task trying to get him to sign with the club. Everton haven’t won a major trophy since 1985 and recently they’ve had little success in cup or league competitions. Therefore, it’s difficult for a manager to say that his club is going places — especially when their city rivals are strengthening.
A sixth-place finish would give Everton Europa League soccer next season but that’s not enough to attract the best players in the game. Everton have a strong squad, but after Lukaku’s apparently inevitable departure, they’ll be short of established stars.
This means Koeman will have to do his homework when signing players in the summer transfer window, and pray he unearths some hidden gems who aren’t on the radar of the six clubs above the Toffees in the league.
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Ultimately, signings like that are unlikely to match up against the quality of the current top four sides. Manchester City are only just holding onto fourth place in the Premier League, and they have one of the biggest budgets in the world.
That’s just something that Everton won’t ever be able to compete with, even with Farhad Moshiri’s input. There are too many things going against Koeman for him to achieve Champions League soccer with Everton in the near future. The quality of the sides above Everton, coupled with the club’s inability to attract the best players, will always hamper any push for a top four spot.