'What is happening?' - Everton concern mounts after injury crisis and brutal post-match verdict

"You have to question what is happening." That was Toni Duggan's appraisal of Everton Women's current plight after Sunday evening's 5-0 defeat to Chelsea at Goodison Park.

Duggan left the Blues in the summer, having progressed through their academy and enjoyed two separate spells at the club over the course of her stellar senior career. She was part of the last Everton team to win major silverware - the 2009/10 FA Cup - and is therefore better qualified than most to offer her insights on the present state of play at Walton Hall Park.

It is for that reason her comments on Sky Sports after the weekend's humbling reverse are so troubling. "I do think sometimes things can be overlooked when (Everton) have bigger problems on the men’s side," she admitted.

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"I’ve been at the club myself for numerous years and we know that. We’re in the same building and we’re around each other, and when things aren’t going right with the men’s team, it filters through to the women’s team and it does impact them. I still believe that the hierarchy - I hope - are as involved in the women’s team and are bothered about the results.

"Everton have been relegated in the past and it was such a disappointing time. I’ve been at Everton since I was young and we’ve always been at the top of the women’s game. Back in the day we were competing with Arsenal for the title. Only three years ago, the ambition was to be in the Champions League."

European football, it seems, is now a long way off for Brian Sorensen's side. Everton currently sit bottom of the Women's Super League (WSL) table with just two points from their first six games.

The small mercy is that they are only in 12th place on goal difference, with West Ham United and Aston Villa both level with them on points. Such is the highly competitive nature of the WSL that one win could move them up to ninth. Two wins could catapult them into seventh place, within touching distance of the top half of the table.

It also must be noted that there are several mitigating factors behind Everton's jaded start to the campaign. According to premierinjuries.com, the Blues currently have the third-highest number of players in the WSL sidelined through injury.

Three of those are long-term absentees, with Aurora Galli, Inma Gabarro and Kenzie Weir all having ruptured their anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL) this year. That two of those ACL injuries came within eight days of each other back in September is reflective of the rotten luck that has dogged Everton in these early months of the season.

Then, there is the pertinent matter of player turnover to consider. Of the 21 senior players who featured for Everton in Sorensen's first season at the club - which culminated in an impressive sixth-place finish in 2022/23 - only 10 still remain at Walton Hall Park.

The high-profile departures of several key players - including Gabby George's transfer to Manchester United in 2023 and club-record signing Hanna Bennison's move to Juventus this summer - has left Sorensen with a significantly weaker squad at his disposal.

All but two of Chelsea's 20-player matchday squad at Goodison Park on Sunday night have been capped at senior international level, compared to just 10 of Everton's 19-player cohort. At 3-0 up, visiting boss Sonia Bompastor was able to bring France international Eve Perisset, Sweden international Nathalie Bjorn and Netherlands international Wieke Kaptein off the bench, while British-record signing Mayra Ramirez remained an unused substitute.

It was a stark reminder of the wildly different orbits these two clubs are currently operating in. "Every game, I go in with the players I have available and try and set the team up to get a result," Sorensen said post-match.

"We did that today and it wasn’t good enough. Chelsea is also a top, top side. I think looking back at our games this season, against Leicester we were the better team, should have won but we couldn’t score. West Ham, should have won, didn’t do it because we couldn’t score.

"Man United, better than United for 80 minutes but didn’t score. I think performance wise it’s been okay. We tried it last season and I think this group, when we have the knife on the throat, then we will be there. I’m not worried."

Sorensen is right to call for calm. After all, there is still more than two thirds of the season yet to play, and five of Everton's next seven WSL games are against teams currently in the bottom half of the table. The January transfer window is also rapidly hurtling to view, bringing with it the promise of some much-needed reinforcements.

"I hope so, otherwise it’s going to be a long season," was Sorensen's reply when quizzed on whether the Blues will be active in the transfer market. "We have season-ending injuries so we’re not going to get them back. We are looking and trying to find the right profiles.

"The takeover also has to get done and all of those things. That is out of my control . I’m only focused on who we have available and of course the targets I want it, we’ve already mapped them out and they’re ready so hopefully there’ll be more faces in in the winter window."

Of course, the Friedkin Group's impending takeover of Farhad Moshiri's majority 94% stake in the club - which still remains subject to regulatory approval - is perceived in some quarters at the light at the end of a very long tunnel for Everton. Sorensen, like his counterparts on the men's side of operations, has spent the last few seasons mired in financial uncertainty which has often left him hamstrung in the transfer market.

There have understandably been calls for the Dane to adjust his possession-based playing style in order to accommodate his current crop of personnel - calls that will surely only grow louder if Everton fail to start picking up points soon - though there is an acceptance that he has broadly done very well in what have been very challenging circumstances.

The prospect of players returning from injury, coupled with potential January incomings, should give Everton a boost heading into the new year. For now, though, next weekend's clash with newly-promoted Crystal Palace - who are currently ninth in the table - seemingly has the potential to be season-defining.

"We need to focus on getting numbers back and make sure that we’re still in contention for everything when we get to Christmas," Sorensen said. "That’s the main focus. Everyone says (Palace) is a super important game, but it’s a game a like every game we try to go in and get the three points. If we go there and lose, it will put is in an even harder situation."

Losing to Palace would not be fatal but it would certainly make Everton's assignment significantly more difficult. And, after that bruising defeat to Chelsea, Sorensen and his players can ill-afford for the pressure to continue to mount.