Everton’s season hasn’t been one full of joy as they have found themselves near the wrong end of the table for the second consecutive season.
But in the last month they have shown their mettle, at a time when it is needed most, as they scrap with their rivals in a tense Premier League relegation battle which looks too close to call.
Sean Dyche has transformed Everton’s fortunes since he joined the club in February with a change of mentality being evident as his side lost just one game in March, even snatching a late draw at Stamford Bridge when Ellis Simms slotted the ball past Kepa Arrizabalaga for his first goal for the Blues.
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As well as that draw Everton managed a fine victory over high-flying Brentford and they held on for a point away to relegation rivals Nottingham Forest. The month did start with a battering from Arsenal as the Gunners won 4-0 with Dyche unable to repeat the heroics he pulled off in his opening game as Blues boss.
Their captain Seamus Coleman started and finished all of those games with the Republic of Ireland international impressing the Liverpool ECHO readers the most as he was voted as their player of the month.
Even though he turns 35 later this year, Coleman remains Everton's first-choice right-back over youngster Nathan Patterson as Dyche seems to have settled on a back-four which hasn’t been altered for the past four games.
The Brentford win saw the best of Coleman as he had to dig in deep and preserve the lead which Everton were given from Dwight McNeil’s early strike so they were under pressure for large amounts of the game, but they were kept at an arm’s length.
Coleman didn’t win the vote by a landslide as even though he got 42% of the 519 votes cast, Abdoulaye Doucoure was a close second with 35%. The Mali international showed in March how vital he can be after Frank Lampard froze him out of the team in his last few weeks in charge.
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Like Coleman, Doucoure started every game and he showed an eye for goal with a goal against Forest after a nicely worked free-kick routine allowed him to head the ball past Keylor Navas after Michael Keane’s flick-on. He also got the assist for McNeil’s goal against Brentford but his standout performance was against Chelsea.
When Everton went 1-0 down he popped up in the six-yard box to head the ball in, then in the last minute his delicate first-time ball found Simms who was able to take it past Kalidou Koulibaly before finishing, so without him a loss would have certainly been on the cards at Chelsea hence why he will be a big miss in April after his red card against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.
Third place with 23% of the votes was McNeil who got the winner against Thomas Frank's side with a sumptuous strike from the edge of the box. The 22-year-old didn’t show much under Lampard but, like he did at Burnley, Dyche has trusted him and given him the responsibly to be one of the main creative outlets at Everton with his set-pieces proving to be a threatening weapon.
If the Blues do stay up the points clinched in March will be looked on as some of the most important, especially if survival is achieved by one point.
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