Everton appointed Marco Silva in charge in the summer, plus showed impressive transfer activity too, but it took some time before the results matched the high ambitions of owners and fans.
With players needing to understand and adjust to Silva’s philosophy, and many new faces in the squad, it was no surprise that up until February the results were inconsistent.
The arrival of Richarlison, Gomes, Digne and Zouma proved great for the overall strength of the team straight away, but Bernard needed several months to adjust to life in England, and Mina’s signing proved a major failure as he spent pretty much the entire campaign injured.
Everton’s main problem throughout the campaign was the absence of a productive centre forward and if it wasn’t for the great contributions from Sigurdsson and Richarlison in attack, the Toffees would have struggled even more.
The positive change eventually came in the final 3 months of the season when wins over Man United and Chelsea, draws vs. Liverpool and Tottenham + 8 clean sheets in the last 11 rounds helped Everton to finish as high as they did, and also showed that trusting Silva was the right thing to do.
If, as expected, Everton find a star centre forward this summer they will be a team to watch next campaign based on what they have shown from February onwards. With no European football to think about either, the Toffees are expected to mount a serious challenge on the top 6 places in 2019/20.
