If anybody was in any doubt this weekends round of games once again showed up the glaringly obvious lack of firepower at manager David Moyes’ disposal. Admittedly this is not a new problem for Moyes to have to contend with, however, the departures of Yakubu, Jermaine Beckford and James Vaughan over the transfer window have only served to exacerbate the problem. While the impact that any of those aforementioned players would have had over the next few months is debatable their departures leave Everton’s threadbare attack, shall we say, even more threadbare.
Being somewhat goal shy is nothing new for Everton though, despite what the media would have you believe. Since the departures of Gary Lineker, yes he did actually play for Everton, and Graeme Sharp only Peter Beardsley in 1992 and the aforementioned Yakubu in 2008 have actually scored twenty goals in a season for the club.
The injuries to Victor Anichebe and Louis Saha, surprise, surprise because nobody saw that coming, have only served to compound the issue and resulted in Tim Cahill being forced into playing as the lone centre forward against Aston Villa on Saturday, with able support provided by Leon Osman. As well as Cahill played, you can’t help but feel that an actual recognised striker would have given an extra dimension to Everton’s play and more than likely rewarded them with the three points they so richly deserved after more or less outplaying Villa for 90 minutes.
Argentinian loanee Denis Stracqualursi is a player that Moyes can thankfully add into the equation, but with doubts over his match fitness at the moment the manager and Everton are somewhat high and dry. How Stracqualursi is going to pan out is anybody’s guess anyway. He certainly knows where the goal is, his 21 goals in 38 games last season for Tigre is a pretty decent return by anybody’s standards, but the big question is how he can adjust to the demands of the Premier League, and through no fault of his own, time is not on his side.
Yet the last twelve months have been the only prolific period of his career, his return of 11 goals in 68 games in the second and third tiers of Argentinian football is not quite so impressive. For the benefit of Moyes and Everton he really needs to hit the ground running and prove that last season at Tigre was not the anomaly.
The worrying thing is the vibes coming out of Goodison at the moment, since last week there has been a lot of ‘bigging’ Tim Cahill up as a striker, Jack Rodwell was even at it on local radio, which suggests the feeling from within the club is that Cahill is the best answer to the striking problems at the moment.
The only other option currently available to Moyes is Apostolos Vellios, a clearly talented youngster, who forced an excellent save from Shay Given, as well as missing a guilt edged chance in his brief cameo against Aston Villa. Yet Vellios needs time to develop and fulfil his potential rather than being rushed into the first-team out of necessity. Given time and some patience the young Greek striker could become the real deal, he certainly has the build and the attitude for it.
The irony is that despite Mikel Arteta’s departure the midfield has not been particularly weakened, Rodwell performed no better or worse than Arteta did in his last match for the club, or has done over the past couple of seasons in all honesty and Leon Osman always seems to perform better when he is the centre of attention. The pace offered by Royston Drenthe is another added bonus and something that Everton have been crying out for for longer than anybody could care to concede. Ultimately though Everton’s lack of a cutting edge could well cost them dear throughout this season.
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