Are Everton now realistic relegation candidates?

Everton boss Roberto Martinez watched on as Everton drew 0-0 with West Brom on Monday night

Everton’s Premier League struggles continued last night as they were held to a goalless draw at Goodison Park by resolute West Brom.

It was a frustrating night for the Everton faithful summed-up by Kevin Mirallas’ penalty miss on the stroke of half-time.

The Merseysider’s are now just four points clear of the relegation zone and it is a worrying situation for everybody connected with the Blues.

Why?

Anybody who knows anything about football know that Everton’s penalty taker is Leighton Baines, yet for some reason Belgium winger Kevin Mirallas took it upon on himself to grab the ball and proceed to miss the Toffees penalty last night.

The big question most people were asking after Mirallas missed was why did he even take the spot-kick in the first place? Baines is one of the league’s top penalty takers having scored 15 out of his 16 spot-kicks in the top-flight.

The scenario was simple for Everton let Baines take the penalty and almost certainly score, which could have transformed the Toffees season, instead Mirallas missed and was subsequently replaced at half-time by Bryan Oviedo.

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall in that dressing room at half-time. Toffees boss Roberto Martinez claimed that Mirallas was injured and that is why he was substituted, but he would have to say that because he would not want to admit that the Belgian had made a selfish choice.

Dominated

Everton dominated the game and enjoyed 69 per cent of possession, but lacked the cutting edge to break through a typically well organised defence set-up by West Brom boss Tony Pulis. The Baggies were outstanding in defence, but in truth Everton lacked creativity and seemed to run out of ideas.

Possession means absolute nothing if you do not do anything with it and the Toffees did very little with the ball when they had it.

Style

Roberto Martinez’s football philosophy is based on passing football and it worked to great effect last season. The Spaniard married his passing, attacking football with the defensive stability previously employed by predecessor David Moyes.

However, something has gone wrong this season. The Everton defence has looked poor this season, but have improved in recent weeks. Unfortunately the new found relative stability at the back has been coupled with a lack of cutting edge in attack.

Confidence

At the moment the Everton players look like they are majorly lacking confidence, so they are playing safer balls and not taking the risks they may have done when the team was flying last season.

Young England midfielder Ross Barkley looks like somebody who is carrying the world on his shoulders at the moment. He is not doing the same things he was last season when in in-form, he is often making the easy pass, which is understandable because he is still a young player.

He is regarded as one of the Toffees most creative players, yet he is struggling to create chances. Maybe it is time to take the youngster out of the firing line and leave him on the bench for a while, because at the moment his confidence is so low that he is not much use to the Toffees.

Fans

The Everton fans are quite rightly frustrated with their team at the moment. This is basically the same group of players that finished fifth in the Premier League table last season, collecting a club-record 72 points in the process.

The Toffees fans showed their frustration last night, as Everton’s best player on the night Muhamed Besic was replaced by striker Arouna Kone. It should have been regarded as a positive move, but instead it incensed the Toffees fans as they could see that Besic was influential.

The Everton fans booed the decision and it was quite an inexplicable decision. Maybe questions should be asked about whether Everton’s experienced central midfielder Gareth Barry should have been replaced, or even Barkley, not Besic though as he was the teams standout player on a frustrating night.

Martinez now needs to look inside himself for answers, because his stubbornness is costing Everton at the moment. He listened to his players when they suggested going more direct in their play and the Toffees have looked more threatening, but they are still struggling to create chances.

It seems that Barry is a player that is fireproof in Martinez’s eyes. The veteran tried his best in central midfielder, but maybe it is time he also had a spell on the sidelines.

Unlikely

Everton may be struggling at the moment and no team is too good to go down, but I still believe that Everton have enough quality to move away from the relegation zone this season. At odds of 22/1 to relegated, they may well be a decent outside bet for the drop though.

Are Everton now realistic relegation candidates?