Hello Blues,
Writing about Everton in the past few weeks hasn’t been all that fun, a bit doom and gloom! But as you can see from the title Saturday was loads better?! And hopefully the turning point in our season –
Now go with me on this analogy, winning a football match is like baking a cake. You need the eggs, the flour, the sugar and the butter but you also need the icing and cherry on top, I know how cliche! Whereas up until Saturday I think we had the eggs, the flour and the sugar but were missing the other vital ingredients, yet with the return of Seamus Coleman and Ross the Boss Barkley we were complete again and even had the cherry on top, with a clean sheet and three goals.
Following four away games on the trot, there was a strong atmosphere around the ground on Saturday, everyone knew it was a must win game. There was a sense of nostalgia with it being ‘retro day’, all fans reminiscing about the good ole days of winning! Following the international break it was important we got the three points.
I was nervous ahead of the game, Villa always seem to do well against us and in recent seasons Agbonlahor just loves scoring against us, the body language of the players before we kicked off did nothing to calm these nerves either!
But we were all pleasantly surprised, Jags seemed back on top form (thank goodness!) even more so now he has scored 3 in the last 4 if you include the England games, still no Distin however Martinez insisted on the Radio City Everton show there was no rift and he just needs rest. Hmm.
Barkley was incredible, his spark is well and truly back and it ignited the whole team, he was getting shots in, made himself a nuisance to the defence and was just generally back to his best! Naismith had a great game, he just doesn’t stop, he was everywhere! I was pleased to see Lukaku on the score sheet, he too put in a good performance.
The defence seemed much more steady than in recent weeks. Alcaraz was impressive, very calm and collected with the little he had to do.
The whole play was much tighter and more compact, they didn’t seem to be as many ‘dodgy’ passes and no unforced errors. We kept the ball much better on Saturday than we have in awhile. With McCarthy and Coleman back, they are two players that hold the ball really well and more so than the benched McGeady and injured Mirallas.
We had a much less ‘gung ho’ approach to the game even when 3-0 up, Martinez was clear in his tactics to keep the ball, no need to get ourselves into a mess, we had 61% of the possession so it seemed to work!
It was overall a really good solid performance, seeing us score 3 fantastic goals that has lifted us 6 places in the League. Martinez seems to have learnt from the errors that have cost us in recent games.
I really hope this is the turning point in our season and from here the only way is up.
Until next time Blues…
The Toffee Lady 