When Ronald Koeman arrived at Everton in June 2016, a wave of optimism carried him through the Goodison gates.

Farhad Moshiri had made his first notable contribution as the club’s majority shareholder with the sacking of Roberto Martinez after a final season of ‘what ifs’ ultimately ended in failure.

Undeterred by suggestions that a move to Goodison would represent a sideways step, Everton trampled over Southampton and sent out a strong statement that the club was no longer content with being plucky outsiders.

Koeman was the only man that Everton wanted and they got him. So often in the past, the club had played the role of defenceless victim in the transfer market.

Now, we were assuming the role of brutal bullies. And we, as fans, embraced it. It was confirmation that Everton were indeed ‘back’ and smug satisfaction enveloped the walls of Goodison Park.

Ronald Koeman could be close to being fired (
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AFP)
Koeman could not inspire Everton to secure a result vs Lyon (
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AFP)
Traore snatched a win as Everton looked destined for at least a point (
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PA)

16 months on and Koeman finds himself, by his own admission, “in a crisis”. The optimism has evaporated and has been replaced by utter despair.

Throughout his short tenure, Everton has always felt like a stepping stone for Ronald Koeman. He has referred to the Everton ‘project’ as if it was a CV building exercise, and there has been no real evidence of fondness or affinity towards the club. Sadly, the project has spectacularly failed to materialise under his management.

To his credit, Koeman made Goodison a tough and well respected arena to visit again after the abhorrent home record of his predecessor.

He also delivered a Top 7 finish in the Premier League that secured a welcome return to European football. These achievements in his first full season at the club should not be underplayed, but come with blot marks in the shape of the quickly forgotten cup exits to Norwich and Leicester.

This season, to date, has been nothing short of a disaster. We have not played well in any of the 16 competitive games and having spent close to a quarter of a billion pounds on assembling his squad since arriving, Koeman simply has no excuses.

Violence erupted at Goodison (
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AFP)
Williams sparked the ugly scenes (
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PA)

His post-match interviews and delusional dissection of the performances point to a man with no idea of how to arrest the slide and simply begging to be sacked.

Five goals in eight Premier League games tells its own story. The criminal failure to recruit a striker and the wasted weeks spent obsessing over the signature of Gylfi Sigurdsson has proven to be a poor piece of management.

No away wins in the Premier League since January and on the verge of an exit from Europe before Christmas serves only to compound the misery.

Each new game brings with it renewed hope that we will turn the corner and green shoots of recovery will become evident.

But there is just no sign of it happening. In fact, each game ends as a painful reminder of how much money the manager has squandered and just how far away we are from the clubs we want to compete with.

Mason Holgate lost his head (
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AFP)
Koeman remonstrates with officials at full time (
Image:
Ross Kinnaird)

Evertonians have been accused in the past of incessant negativity from sections of the media but with each passing wretched display the frustrations become more understandable.

There is no pace and no imagination in this side, and the manager remains committed to shoehorning as many one paced second strikers as possible into a side that has no guile.

A lack of credible alternatives to Koeman is being offered as validation for a stay of execution. Carlo Ancelotti is a proven and consistent winner and ticks all the boxes. Whether he could be convinced to take on the job remains to be seen.

Closer to home, David Unsworth’s name has been strongly linked after his outstanding work with the U23’s. While there would be obvious risks to appointing a man with no experience of managing at this level, many Evertonians would argue that sticking with Koeman represents a vaster risk at this stage.

Unsworth could potentially be given the job until Christmas by which time the club could assess the situation ahead of the transfer window.

The simple fact is that it is over for Ronald Koeman at Everton Football Club. He has lost the players, and more crucially, he has lost the supporters. He has never ‘got’ us and his coldness and treatment of the likes of Ross Barkley underlines that very fact.

Everton have always been a club that gives managers time to get it right. There is a perceived ‘Everton’ way of doing things with class and dignity. But for a club that is closing in on 23 years without a trophy, there is little room for sentiment or blind faith.

"It is just not enough to say we’re special or we’re a great club. We don’t want to be a museum. We need to be competitive and we need to win."

The time has come for Farhad Moshiri to prove that his words were more than just empty platitudes.

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