Sam Allardyce furious with ‘pathetic’ Everton display against Arsenal: ‘The whole team played crap’

The Everton boss said the team failed to apply his gameplan

Sam Allardyce was not impressed with his side's performance (Getty)

Sam Allardyce has admitted that his “whole team played crap” in Everton 5-1 defeat at Arsenal, describing the entire display as “pathetic”. The Goodison Park boss also said he was “angry”, and that anyone could have been taken off bar goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

Everton had been 3-0 down within 21 minutes and 4-0 down by 37 and after a brief rally in the second half thanks to the introduction of some of the younger players, Allardyce was asked whether Ademola Lookman could have had an impact.

“No, we’ve got £20m Theo Walcott and £30m Yannick Bolasie and if you’d put him out there he wouldn’t have done any better than the rest because the whole team played crap,” Allardyce said.

The Everton boss said the team failed to apply his gameplan.

“I was angry. I’m still angry. I think accepting an instruction is part of a player’s responsibility at the level required. We tried to give the most instruction in the time we had available. There were clear instructions today because there was a good performance against Swansea [City] against Arsenal that gave them a good [3-1] victory and we based our plan on that.

“Unfortunately, Swansea played at the top of their game and we played at the bottom of our game. If you play at the Emirates, you’ve got to play at your best and our 11 didn’t play anywhere near our best, that’s why we were tumbling goals in a pathetic performance.

“None of it was any good in the first half. Our attacking wasn’t any good and our defending was pathetic. Tom Davies was good when he came on and [goalscorer] Dominic [Calvert-Lewin] did well and showed.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored a late consolation (Getty)

“Theo [Walcott] wanted to put on a good show but the pathetic performance we gave didn’t give him the opportunity to do that,” Allardyce added of Walcott, who endured a frustrating return to Arsenal and was subbed off.

“I had to change the system but it could have been anybody coming off - apart from the goalie.”