Now Allardyce HAS improved Everton (probably)

Signing Theo Walcott would appear to materially strengthen Everton's squad. It has been reported that Walcott chose Everton because of Sam Allardyce: Walcott was selected in Allardyce's only England match in charge. (Remember, Everton is the only club whose manager has a 100% record in internationals).

Walcott has not fulfilled the promise that got him a (then) quite big money move to Arsenal aged 16, followed by a call up for England's 2006 World Cup Squad aged 17 a few months later. But he has 47 England caps and over 100 career goals for Arsenal. To put that in context, in Everton's long and glorious  history* they have only had five players who have scored over 100 goals while playing for the club. Walcott was Arsenal's 18th. So he is very much a proven Premier League forward.

Yes, Everton have Wayne Rooney, with even more stellar career numbers. But Rooney is 32 and, though both he and Walcott started out young, Rooney has a lot more miles on the clock and never had explosive pace, an important attribute the current Everton squad was pretty well devoid of.

At 28 Walcott could have few good years left. His goal return from games played is significantly better than the departed Kevin Mirallas and the remaining Yannick Bolasie and Aaron Lennon, who have latterly filled the berth most likely for Walcott in the team.

Whether Walcott will improve Everton in practice we shall see, but it is a good acquisition on paper. The fee of around £20 million doesn't seem high for an English player in these times of stratospheric fees. And if it doesn't work out a decent proportion might be recouped, so low risk on the face of it.

So this might well be the first really significant change made by Allardyce since his arrival.

And here's an off the wall idea for further improvement  - bring back Jack "The Lad" Rodwell, currently languishing at Sunderland, excluded from the first team squad and training alone 3 times a day, while pocketing his crippling £70k a week wedge which Sunderland would dearly love not to pay - and are only doing so because they failed to insert a relegation clause when they bought him from Manchester City. Sunderland can't cancel Rodwell's contract and can't get anyone to take him off their hands.

Rodwell, who hails from Birkdale and was with Everton from the age of 7 to 21, is still only 26 and was the youngest player to play for Everton in Europe aged 16. He was capped by England at 20 and was spoken of as a future England captain. He moved to Manchester City in 2012 in a big money move which blighted his career, much as the move to Arsenal did for Franny Jeffers and as, I fear, will Ross Barkley's move to Chelsea.

In Everton's academy Rodwell was always seen as a central defender, but he got in the first team very young playing in midfield. He now thinks central defence would be the right role for him. Well, here's my idea. Offer to take him on loan from Sunderland for half his current wages, with a view to taking over his contract by the end of the season if he does well. Play him as a holding midfield player, much as Eric Dier at Tottenham. After all, he can't possibly be any worse than Morgan Schneiderlin. If it does work he provides back up for the centre backs (you need lots of them if you want to play three). We could get him for nothing and offload Schneiderlin for worthwhile bucks. If it didn't work the cost would have been trivial for Everton. And I note that Rodwell appeared a lot for Sunderland when Sam Allardyce was their manager.

And here's another controversial proposal: if Everton can't get either of their preferred target left backs, Aaron Cresswell from West Ham or Luke Shaw from Manchester United, make a deadline offer to take Jon Flanagan from Liverpool for a handful of peanuts. Flanagan has just been sentenced to a 12 month community order for egregiously attacking his girlfriend, has 5 months left on his Anfield contract and is persona non grata there judging by Liverpool's statement after the court hearing. While all this is unsavoury and can't really be excused, Flanagan clearly does not deserve to lose his right to earn a living over it. I've never quite understood why professional sports people are regarded as role models for anything other than their ability to play sport. And so few of them do anything to deserve their unasked for status as role models. Rare exceptions are Juan Mata, who donates one percent of his salary to a global charity and Steven Naismith who, while at Everton, regularly paid out of his own pocket for unemployed fans to have a seat at Goodison.

Before things went off the rails, Flanagan had made 40 appearances for Liverpool, mainly in the season when they so nearly won the league and won one cap for England.

The only problem I see with this idea is that it might be better for Flanagan to make his way somewhere other than Merseyside. But where better to earn redemption? After all Everton's pioneering Everton In The Community programme, which has 140 staff involved full-time in community projects, does a lot of work with young offenders and claims a 76% non-reoffending rate in the first year compared with the national average of 26%. They also run 26 disability sports teams, a free school, a programme to tackle dementia and look after children whose lives have been affected by crime**. A perfect opportunity for a  young man who has gone astray to make amends? And again, if it didn't work, by taking him now the cost would be tiny.

*Don't smirk: when I left school no team had won the league more often than Everton and it was only in the mid 1990s that Arsenal and Manchester United joined Liverpool in having materially more league titles. Everton still have 9 league wins to Chelsea's 6 and Manchester City's 4.
**http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/everton/11337745/Everton-are-a-shining-beacon-for-football-as-a-force-for-good-in-the-community.html