Everton are still very much in contention to finish in the top-seven despite a shaky start to the Premier League campaign under former boss Marco Silva.
The Toffees won just four league games under the Portuguese, drawing twice and losing the other nine.
Everton risked going down with Silva in charge, but have since turned a corner under Carlo Ancelotti, winning four games, drawing thrice and losing just once since the Italian manager arrived.
The Goodison Park outfit are now two points off seventh-placed Manchester United and four points behind fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur, but they were widely tipped to do much more better heading into the season.
Everton’s bitter rivals Liverpool are sitting comfortably at the top of the league table and have gone 22 points ahead of second-placed Manchester City.
The Reds will have the chance to clinch the title at Goodison Park if they win their next four games and City suffer one more defeat, and former Everton boss Sam Allardyce believes it’s massively depressing for everybody who supports the club that Liverpool are doing so well.
“Looking back I was always going to be the stop-gap. I didn’t know that in the beginning but I found out later on. Marco Silva was always going to come in. I don’t think anyone expected them to do so badly,” Big Sam told Sportsmail.
“They’re a massive club struggling to find the right direction. They’ve got a big manager now with a big reputation and he’s a great guy.
“Hopefully that will be enough with the right recruitment ideas to get the club where it wants to go because Liverpool up the road are the world champions and it’s massively depressing for everybody who supports Everton.”
Liverpool are light years ahead of Everton, and it will be interesting to see if Ancelotti can help them get to the next level going forward.
Stopping Jurgen Klopp’s men from potentially becoming Premier League champions at Goodison will definitely be relieving, and March’s Merseyside derby could be a feisty one.
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