The future looks bright for Everton

In spite of Friday’s unlucky 2-0 loss away to Aston Villa, the future looks bright for Everton, even though they have some issues to resolve in the short-term.

Friday’s defeat will be hard to stomach for Everton fans, especially as their side were the better team overall, but there’s nonetheless plenty for them to be excited about.

The arrival of 19-year-old Italy international Moise Kean from Juventus may well say as much about the size of the current Premier League TV deal as it does about Everton’s improved standing, but there’s no denying that Kean’s signing is a coup for Marco Silva’s team.

Drawing a veil over his dreadful goal celebration routine, Kean deservedly became one of the most coveted young talents in Europe last season. It wasn’t just that the teenage forward didn’t look out of place while playing alongside the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Paulo Dybala and Mario Mandzukic. He often managed to stand out in that vaunted company as well.

The individual who has received much of the credit for bringing Kean to Everton, namely director of football Marcel Brands, is another reason for the club’s supporters to be optimistic.

Brands’ predecessor, Steve Walsh, arrived at Everton in 2016 amid much fanfare, billed as the man whose recruitment policy was among the key factors behind Leicester’s unexpected 2016 Premier League triumph. Walsh entirely failed to live up to the hype, however.

In contrast, Brands has quietly gone about what seems to be some very good business this summer, bringing in Jean-Philippe Gbamin from Mainz and Arsenal’s Alex Iwobi, in addition to Kean.

The other obvious cause for excitement among Everton’s fanbase is the planned new stadium. While it’s been mooted for a great many years, it now seems that the club might well finally leave Goodison Park after more than a century.

The designs for the proposed stadium on Liverpool’s waterfront by architect Dan Meis, who designed Seattle’s Safeco Field and the Cincinnati Bengals’ Paul Brown Stadium, are certainly impressive.

In the short-term, though, Everton clearly have some issues to address. The good news is that many of the problems they encountered tonight are easily remedied.

Everton dominated this game for the opening 20 minutes, only to fall behind when they failed to regain their shape immediately after giving away a free-kick.

It’s much easier to address a lack of concentration like that than a basic lack of ability. Similarly, it’s hard to believe that Andre Gomes, who on Friday often appeared to have lost his grasp of the rudiments of the game, can possibly play as badly again this season.

Coming into the match, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Richarlison had yet to shine this term, and they were both poor again here. The upside is that Everton’s squad may well already have the talent to ameliorate these shortcomings.

Ahead of kick-off, the speculation in both the media and among Everton fans had centered on whether Moise Kean or Dominic Calvert-Lewin would be selected up front. When Kean was finally introduced on the hour mark tonight, however, it was Sigurdsson rather than Calvert-Lewin whom he replaced.

Everton were chasing the game by the time Kean was introduced on the hour mark, of course. But the area of the pitch in which Kean then operated suggested that the Iceland international might the one to lose out when Kean is introduced to the starting XI, which seems increasingly likely in light of this performance.

The most pressing issue for Everton is their inability to impose themselves convincingly upon the opposition. They were the better team overall here, just as they had been on the opening day against Crystal Palace. In match-week two, they scored early and then just about managed to shut Watford out in an even game.

But what they’ve failed to do at all this season — and also struggled to do in recent years — is to control games or outclass the opposition on anything approaching a regular basis.

And in light of the bright future that the club projects — one in which the most-hyped talents in Europe join the ranks of a team that plays in a new, iconic stadium — this surely needs to change.