Premier League winners and losers: Harry Kane sets more records

Loser: Everton

Maybe everyone, including yours truly, was a bit too eager to crown Sam Allardyce as Everton’s savior. The Toffees were throttled 4-0 against Tottenham over the weekend, and the final score may have been kinder than the match indicated.

After a hot start that included five wins in six matches, Sam Allardyce’s club are in the midst of a four-match losing streak in all competitions and haven’t won in six. To be fair, three of those contests were against Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham. They also lost to Bournemouth and drew with West Brom, and have only scored twice during this six-match stretch. In fact, this is one of the worst stretches for Everton in terms of attacking in over 10 years.

Yikes.

The knock on Allardyce has always been his style of play. His teams often are stout defensively but lack the imagination and inventiveness going forward to keep up with the top teams in the league. This is the highest profile club job in his career, and it’s going to take more than simply keeping them from being relegated to call this season a success.

Still, even after this awful run, Everton are in a better place than they have been all season. The Tottenham thrashing aside, all of the contests were at the very least close, and the Toffees have only given up seven goals under Allardyce. The club was in dire straits when he took over, and while the threat of relegation may have been an overreaction, it’s certainly not there anymore. Big Sam might not be the manager to move Everton forward, but at least they’re back to being competitive.