Season 2011-12 Fan Articles
Pressure From The Front
By Matthew Lovekin :: 12/02/2012
6 Comments (»Last)
After Everton?s recent ?success? of a six-match unbeaten run, which includes victories over the nation?s two biggest spending clubs, David Moyes should be looking at what has changed from earlier in the season.
Personally, there are a number of points that Moyes should be looking at and trying to keep stable.
1. Landon Donovan?s return. Donovan has started in all nine games since his return and despite not yet scoring, he has created seven goals out of the total eleven goals that Everton have scored in that time. That?s an astonishing total of 63% of Everton?s goals have been made by Donovan since his return. In those nine games, Everton have won four, drawn three and lost twice. That?s an average points total of 1.66 points per game which would put Everton 7th in the Premier League table, above Liverpool over the course of the whole season. Unfortunately, I can?t see any way that Donovan will stay or return to Everton once this loan has finished. If Landon Donovan is the defining factor in Everton?s upturned fortune, we will certainly find out sooner rather than later.
2. Steven Pienaar?s return. A number of Evertonians will surely look at Everton?s improvement and point at Pienaar coming back on loan. As much as I like Pienaar, he has only been back for two games and Everton were starting to improve before, particularly with the win over Man City when Pienaar was still at Spurs. He has certainly improved the team, but not the main factor behind Everton?s improvement.
3. Moyes?s mentality. After watching some pretty dour and awful defensive football, perhaps David Moyes finally realised something needed to change. He even came out in an interview not long before the Man City game where he apologised to the fans for some of the tripe served up this season.
When the biggest spenders and league leaders came to Goodison, we finally saw what I had been eagerly awaiting: Donovan and Drenthe starting together on opposite wings. Pace, power and an eye for goal from both sides of the pitch gave us a double pronged attack that not many sides are used to playing against in this modern era. Unfortunately, Drenthe got benched again the next game but Pienaar has come in to have a similar impact.
Perhaps Moyes has finally realised that he needs wingers on the wing rather than central midfielders or full-backs. However, do any fans believe that Moyes can change his long term mentality?
4. Moyes?s tactics. Has David Moyes also realised that he needs players playing their correct positions all over the park or has he just stumbled across a winning formula? No more defenders in midfield, midfielders in attack, full-backs as wingers in 2012. All formations can be interpreted differently, but if Moyes persists with his favoured 4-5-1, he needs attacking support and creativity from midfield along with a lone striker that will run all day and hold up the ball. For the majority of this season, fans have witnessed none of that and the 4-5-1 formation has looked outdated. The 4-4-2 can still work as shown by Man Utd and Spurs, but you need the right players in the right position whatever formation you play. This depends on whether Moyes has any money in the summer to buy the correct players when the loan players go back to their clubs. 5. Denis Stracqualursi. The big Argentine has taken a long while to settle in England. He finally got a decent chance when he started against Man City after Moyes finally appeared to lose faith in Louis Saha. Personally, I think Denis was Man of the Match against City and also got a goal to beat Chelsea. In fairness to Stracqualursi, it?s not his quality that has changed Everton?s fortunes as he is certainly no Messi or Tevez. However, he brings something that is priceless: energy and enthusiasm. He never stops running and chasing the opposition?s entire defence, putting them under constant pressure.
This enthusiasm is infectious. Cahill seems to have upped his game slightly playing behind Denis. We all now Cahill works hard, but he is more likely to do it if he see?s a lone striker working hard in front of him. If the midfield see a front pairing chasing the opposition, then they are likely to pressurise as well, and therefore Denis has created a knock on effect.
Denis has nowhere near the ability that Saha has, but he works a hell of a lot harder. Denis can also hold the ball up really well which enables the attacking support of Donovan, Pienaar, Cahill and even Gibson to arrive from midfield and Everton to start an attack in the opposition?s half.
For all Barcelona?s quality play over the last three years, their success has been attributed to their hard work and pressuring the opposition to win the ball back. I?m not saying Everton are going to turn into Barcelona, but it?s certainly a good place to start; pressure from the front.
Reader Comments (6)
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2 Posted 13/02/2012 at 02:13:48
Unlike Ferguson, AV-B, Mancini et al, he does not have the luxury of buying five or six gifted but temperamental dilettantes in each positional area knowing that if a couple turn out to be more temper than gift, he'll still be right.
The greatest single factor in our recent change around has been the temporary acquisition of the right and left sided midfielder/wingers Donovan and Pienaar who are talented, will work and (unlike Drenthe) are consistent, to complement the (relatively) classy Fellaini. But we still need, but don't have (because we can't afford one), another top drawer box to box central midfielder. That's what dictates that we still play 4-5-1 (or 4-4-1-1).
And if that's so, your big lump Straq/Marcus Bent type (or even Vellios) who will work all day and, as a result, from time to time be there to (as often as not fortuitously) stick out a foot or get a head on to something, supported by a Tim Cahill or Leon Osman, is going to be a better bet for us than either your far more gifted but inveterately lazy Saha and Yakuba types or your hard working but far too small and weak to worry defenders Andy Johnson channel runner types. For that reason, sadly, I see this Croatian bloke from Rangers being a waste of money.
3 Posted 13/02/2012 at 06:05:54
However lets wait and see how he does before we condemn Jelavic...
4 Posted 13/02/2012 at 18:35:20
For me, although admittedly he hasn't been spectacular so far, he is as important as the two players already mentioned, not least because having him on the filed means we don't resort to neville in the middle of the park, which solves one of you square peg situations.
Not only that, but he has allowed Fellaini to play to his full potential, breaking up play with confidence.
This is something i've rarely seen Fellaini do when Rodwell plays along side him, and for me this is the big question. What to do with Rodwell when fit?
As for Jelavic, i think we'll have to wait and see! But lets face it, a lot of us wanted rid of Saha and to see an new striker brought in an that's what Moyes did.
5 Posted 16/02/2012 at 13:30:00
He could be a good-man's Wes Brown, who started at United at right back then went to centre back.
He has height, which means no Hibbo or Pip and potentially, push Coleman further forward dependent on which wingers we have etc.
6 Posted 17/02/2012 at 21:25:35
I have said (ad nauseum) that all great strikers play in pairs. Shearer always had a foil, as did Keegan, Lineker, Rush, Fowler, Owen, Defoe etc etc etc... Saha will do well at Spurs because he will not be ISOLATED and receive the ball mainly in the air.
Despite the boo boys, Louis was terrific at Fulham and Man Utd... he was also the LAST striker to win a MotM for us when he hit 4 goals against Blackpool. Our current methods ruin strikers as they are expected to be workhorses with no-one to run off them. Our best strikers always hunted in pairs and we had a great tradition of producing strikers years ago that has ceased to be.
DM is not so much interested in scoring lots of goals so long as we don't LOSE!! When we finished fourth and got into the Champions League Qualifiers, we did it with a NEGATIVE goal difference.... Our tactics are mainly spoiling and stopping other teams from playing and that's why we are so poor to watch.
Surely other fans can see this. We tend to scramble points with effort and great defence, but we struggle when expected to take the initiative against supposed lesser sides at Goodison. We have really only raised our game when we are pitched against top four clubs.
Unfortunately we will never know what DM would have done with lots of money and a Billionnaire owner as he has never been tested in that way... Maybe its better for him that we stay broke, then he cannot be blamed for lack of success.
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1 Posted 12/02/2012 at 23:06:31
All Coaches play the lottery system up to a point... news flash shock horror, there is no magic system. The key to coaching is Better players, getting the basics right ( sq pegs etc ) and a bit of luck in getting the balance and mix right.
Moyes has been a bit lacking on all three and there's the problem.