Everton was able to wipe out the first four Premier League matches with a win. After that, the Toffees’ performance was inconsistent. Tons of injuries are one of the causes. Besides that, Everton’s defense was not very good either. Until week 11, Everton only managed to win one goal, namely in the first match against Tottenham Hotspur. Carlo Ancelotti must rack his brains, change formations and line-ups to get the best results. Coupled with the many players who missed out due to injury.
In the matches against Fulham (week 9), Leeds (week 10), and Burnley (week 11), Ancelotti carried a 3-4-2-1 formation. The result, Everton’s defense still leaves a hole. They conceded four of those three games.
However, Ancelotti was not the coach yesterday afternoon. His work history at AC Milan, Chelsea, PSG, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich is not an arbitrary record. The achievements of this 61-year-old coach are also unquestionable. Myriad experiences made him understand what to do to fix the problem.
The previous three games against Chelsea, Leicester and Arsenal, Everton managed to win and conceded only one goal. Solid defense and being able to take advantage of opportunities to score goals is key. Not surprisingly, considering Ancelotti is an Italian coach who is reliable in concocting defense. Strengthening defense has been Ancelotti’s daily diet for a long time.
Defender duo Yerry Mina and Michael Keane became Everton’s defensive wall. Injuries to Lucas Digne and Seamus Coleman meant Mason Holgate and Ben Godfrey had to play outside their best positions. Both are positioned as central defenders, but Holgate is now filling Coleman’s position at right-back. Meanwhile Godfrey shifted to play in the left-back position left by Digne.
When viewed from the opponent’s expected goals or xGA (expected goals against), Everton recorded better numbers than the previous weeks. That is, they are able to prevent the opponent from making good chances. Ancelotti has catenaccio blood which can make this happen. One of the changes is that the fullback doesn’t go up much. “Our defense is solid and very organized. The last line worked well. The fullback didn’t go up much, so it was difficult for us to lose balance in the game, “said Ancelotti.
For Keane individually, these results were the fruit of hard work from the early days of the pandemic. He began to find his best performance since Everton’s purchase from Burnley in 2017. Quoted from The Athletic, Keane took advantage of the pandemic by refining basic techniques again. At the level of European football, basic things are still important to train.
Keane asked Paul McGuinness for help, his coach when he was studying at the Manchester United academy. They used the video to analyze what Keane should improve. Three main things become priorities, namely ball ability, positioning, and movement. The training carried out by Keane has paid off if you look at the impressive performance of the 27-year-old defender recently.
What Keane did is an example of the hard work of Everton players in improving performance. If we only look at the match, we can easily tell that the player is “on fire”. But the job of footballers is certainly not only during matches. Hard work on the training ground has a huge impact on performance in real matches.
The players’ hard work synergizes with Ancelotti’s ability to solve problems. No wonder Everton’s performance is slowly improving. Ancelotti understands what must be addressed and the players are able to execute well in matches.
Some of Everton’s victories weren’t really convincing wins. In the last three games, Everton’s possession was quite low (42% vs Arsenal, 39% vs Leicester, 28% vs Chelsea). The goals scored by Everton did not come from an attractive attacking scheme like their goal at the start of the season. But that was enough to make Liverpool’s blue camp win three points. This is somewhat positive to see the hurricane of injury reduce the quality of Everton’s attacks.
One of their biggest losses is of course the absence of James Rodriguez as a playmaker. The attacking contribution from wing-backs that Digne and Coleman used to make was also absent. Automatic supply for Dominic Calvert-Lewin as a striker in the penalty box decreased, although the English striker was still able to contribute to Everton’s attack. He won a penalty against Chelsea and made Rob Holding score an own goal against Arsenal.
In addition, Everton also managed to score two goals through corner situations in the last three matches. Dead ball is a situation that needs to be maximized when creative players are absent. So far, Everton has been able to maximize this well.
It is interesting to see how Everton will perform when their main players started to recover. Ancelotti again needs to rack his brains how to make a strong defense when Digne and Coleman return to fill fullback positions. In that period, Ancelotti’s experience could speak again to make Everton’s game evenly and to achieve positive results.
ASL
