Everton (again — still!) not doing as badly as their points total suggests

Everton have just lost at home against Arsenal. The normal league table now puts them in 18th place, behind Stoke on goal difference. There are predictable calls for Ronald Koeman to quit.

It’s true that the Toffees have not played well lately. Not as well as Everton fans have come to expect, for sure.

But their defeat against Arsenal — who despite a less-than-stellar start to the season are clearly a top-half team — can hardly be considered a surprise. So in the alt-3 league table nothing is really affected by it. Everton now occupy 12th place in the alt-3 table, down from 11th this morning.

The reason is that Everton’s fixture schedule to date this season has been unusually tough. They now face what should be an altogether easier run of fixtures up to the end of 2017.

What all this means, for Everton, is that if all teams were to perform as well for the rest of the season as they have done so far, Everton should expect to end up near the middle of the Premier League table after all of this season’s matches have been played. Everton are actually doing about as well as Leicester and West Brom.

But, of course, things don’t often stay the same. And especially if Koeman does leave, who knows what might happen?