As the calendar turns, so to do the seasons. A long summer of twists in turns with optimism and disappointment a plenty. The summer has ended and now we are into the fall and moving right along into the thick of the grueling Premier league schedule. For most of September it was more of what we all saw in August, bad performances, uncertainty about ownership, albeit it was moving in the right direction on that front, and mounting pressure on a manger who hasn’t done much to restore confidence in a supporter base. Football has a funny way of always having another twist in the tale, and luck can change on a dime. Everton had 4 matches this past month. Things started off rocky, but there is now room for optimism as we head into the final 3 months of 2024. Let’s start by talking about the matches.
Everton started of their September slate with a match at Aston Villa. Fresh off a historic collapse at home against Bournemouth it would of been nice if Everton could of started off the month with at least a point. What Everton got instead was another bad result that put them into the history books again. After Dwight McNeil and Dominic Calvert-Lewin put Everton up 2-0 there was a brief moment of perhaps thinking Everton could steal 3 points, but that was never very likely. Nine minutes after Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s goal Ollie Watkins hit Everton back with one for Villa. You could just feel the sense of here we go again even if you weren’t at Villa Park. Everton were able to hold off Villa for a little while after that , but Watkins scored again right before the hour mark, and it was game on. With only 15 minutes left in the match it looked like Everton would squeak out a point, but another goal of the year type effort from Jhon Duran stole all 3 points for Villa. With back to back 3-2 loses after being up 2-0, Everton became only the second team in the premier league era to lose consecutive matches in that fashion.
There was no time to dwell on that result with Southampton coming to Goodison for league cup match. Everton played poorly again. For the third straight match Everton struck first, this time Doucoure scored the only goal for Everton. Southampton equalized through Taylor Harwood-Bellis. There wasn’t much going on after that goal and the match went straight to penalties. In that shootout we saw the worst penalties performance from an Everton keeper in quite some time. That poor performance lead to losing the shootout and crashing out of the league up.
Next up came a massive match at Leicester City. It was a familiar sight for Everton, once again scoring the first goal in the match. A beautiful goal from Ndiaye. Everton scored first for the 5th straight match stretching back to the Doncaster Rovers match. For most of the match it looked like Everton were going to have no problems holding on to a 1-0 victory in a rain soaked match. But once again with right around 15 minutes left a corner to the back post is cleared poorly and put in by Leicester City, and the match ends in a 1-1 draw.
Everton had one more match in September to finally get their first win of the season. Palace at home. Finally, Everton got it done. Ironically, Palace scored first on another back post delivery that Everton didn’t clear properly. Everton looked horrible in the first half and seemed like they were gonna get beat by multiple goals by the end of the match. But right after halftime Dwight McNeil came alive scoring a wonder goal and then following it up with a great second goal just 7 minutes later. Those two goals were enough to see Everton pick up their first win of the season.
While there was plenty of action on the pitch, there was another massive development on the Everton takeover front. It had been reported previously that John Textor was in an exclusivity agreement with Everton, but that was clearly not the case. The Friedkin group has come back to Everton and it’s looking like in the next weeks and months they will be approved by the Premier League as the new majority owners of Everton Football Club. This really did come out of nowhere, but it was clearly being worked on quite a bit behind the scenes without anyone knowing. This is very exciting news for the future of Everton. The Friedkin group has had some success winning a Conference league with Roma, and turning Roma into a commercial success. The task at Everton is very difficult, but this ownership group might be the perfect team to tackle it.
Spetember was a bit of mixed bag for Everton, great news on the ownership front, but all the results weren’t there. If you take some positives from the losses and the draw with Leicester there is some hope that more wins are coming on the horizon, especially with the return of Jarred Branthwaite at the end of the month. On this Everton roller coaster, the team seems to be headed back up after a steep drop.
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