At Hill Dickinson Stadium last Saturday, just after play had restarted after half-time, I turned to a fellow fan in the South Stand and said that Everton would be lucky not to concede within 5 minutes.
Yet even that incredibly low bar was surpassed by David Moyes’s team, who were behind just 43 seconds into the second half.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Merlin Röhl made a complete mess of defending down the right flank, and then Everton’s backline completely flapped at clearing the cross before it fell to Pedro Neto. Jordan Pickford should then have done better, having got down low to get his left hand to the ball. Yet, a bit like against Hull City six days earlier, Pickford then failed to keep the shot out.
And while there was a run of mistakes in build-up for the goal that multiple players should be held accountable for, there is a wider issue at play, and that is simply that Everton just switch off at the start of second halves.
Now Chelsea have scored 3 goals in the opening minute of either half in the Premier League this season, so they are generally fast out of the blocks. But that is only half of the context. Everton conceded in the first minute of the second half against Manchester United, and within 3 minutes of the restart against Hull City.
This is a worrying trend. Is it down to the manager or is it the players? Surely, it’s a bit of both. Whatever Moyes is saying to the players at half-time isn’t having the desired effect, because Everton come back out for the second half looking sluggish and lacking focus.
And it’s not just been limited to when Everton concede, either. Against Ipswich Town last month, Everton gave up 2 shots on target within 4 minutes of the second half getting up and running, with Pickford having to make 2 saves. Pickford was also called into action within 78 seconds of the restart against Tottenham on September 12. And the stats show that Everton are much more vulnerable in the second half this season than they are before the break.
Now, game state is important here. Naturally, matches are more open after the break, as teams press to take the points or try and recover a result. There have been 82 goals scored in the first half of Premier League matches this term, and 117 goals netted after the break… But the disparity when it comes to Everton is huge.
The Toffees have shipped 7 second-half goals, while they have conceded only once in the first half in the league this season. Their second-half xG is 5.1, whereas their first-half xG is 4.6. Everton have faced 53 second-half shots compared to 43 first-half shots.
So, the underlying metrics aren’t vastly different, but Everton are certainly defensively weaker after the break, and we now know that 3 of those 7 goals have been shipped within 180 seconds of play getting going again. And conceding so early in the half immediately puts Everton on the back foot. Against Hull, the response was there; against Chelsea, it was not.
And Everton have then been left needing to score 2 goals to win a game. That then speaks to another problem — that Moyes’ men aren’t scoring any first-half goals. They have netted just twice in the league this season prior to half-time. They are leaving themselves with too much to do, and compounding that by slack play immediately after the interval.
It must be addressed, Moyes must find a way to instil a better level of focus, and the players must be more switched on. It’s a trend that simply can’t continue.