Everton have endured a torrid start to the new Premier League season, winning just two of their opening seven games.
Ray Wilkins has told The Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast on talkSPORT (broadcast on 2nd October 2017; 6:20 am) that he was impressed with the business that Everton did during the transfer window, and suggested that the players’ capitulation against Burnley was sad.
The Toffees go into the international break sat in the bottom-half of the Premier League table, having won just two of their opening seven league games and scoring just four goals in that time.
The pressure appears to be mounting on Ronald Koeman following the 1-0 defeat to Burnley at Goodison Park at the weekend. But Wilkins was seemingly somewhat sympathetic towards the Dutchman by insisting that the business that the club did over the summer was good enough for them to make a strong start to the campaign.
“But watching them yesterday, my word, they’re almost shadows of the guys that we’ve been used to seeing, and it was quite sad actually to see the way that Everton capitulated.”
Though Wilkins has praised Everton’s summer business, there will be many others who will disagree with him as they feel there a number of problems within the squad.
Romelu Lukaku was not replaced by a marquee forward – while Wayne Rooney is undoubtedly a marquee name, he has not been a prolific goalscoring option for a while – while they added a cluster of attacking midfielders who best suit the number 10 role.
Meanwhile, there appears to be serious question marks surrounding the defence. So while Wilkins may argue that he did not see this start coming, there may well be some fans who feared this was on the cards from the moment the window closed.
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