Hello Blues,
Now we all know our defence hasn’t been great of late and we haven’t had the best of starts to the season.
The guys over at the Everton page have asked me to delve into this and see where we’re going wrong!
My initial thoughts were that maybe captain Phil Jagielka is still suffering from a ‘world cup hangover’, or that Sylvain Distin isn’t exactly getting any younger. We also seem to be giving the ball away far too easily and not playing Osman and Pienaar has meant we’re not keeping the ball well at all, leading to the opposition taking the opportunity to get ahead.
With injuries our defensive line up is changing regularly, so compared to last season we had a pretty consistent back four that were used to playing with each other whereas this term we’ve had a changeable back four that are maybe not quite as used to playing with each other, leading to holes in the defence.
So let’s delve a little deeper.
Distin is 36 and will turn 37 in December, he’s getting on a bit now for a footballer I think it’s fair to say. I think we’ve all noticed his pace isn’t what it used to be, no criticism of him personally, it’s just one of those things! Jags is also 32 and he played in the world cup this summer, surely leading to fatigue! The centre back duo are the stalwarts of our defence, or at least were until this new season. We have now conceded 13 goals in the Premiership – let’s not count Tuesday night… meaning we’ve gone from being in the top three in the league in terms of the strongest defence to now having the worst.
Not all blame can be landed on the pair, Tim Howard has also not had the greatest of starts to the season, that said he was phenomenal in last Thursday’s Wolfsburg victory. However he then had the one of the worst games I’ve seen against Crystal Palace, he didn’t have much to do, but what he did, he got it all wrong.
I think the world cup has knocked Jags in particular and to then be the only player who was both a regular at the World Cup and available for the opening Euro qualifier game in Basel to suffer demotion to the bench is bound to knock his confidence, it’d be weird if it didn’t knock your confidence! I’ve always been a fan of Jags, but he’s become very inconsistent lately.
It feels like we are playing catch up at moment, we have a busy fixture schedule and we seem to be constantly trying to pick ourselves up and get ready for the next game but we’re still tired from the previous game and the whole game suffers.
One alarming statistic is that against Crystal Palace we had a massive 76% of the possession and yet we lost all three points. There is no excuse to have that kind of possession and not come away with a victory. We now have the second worst home record in the premier league, Goodison was once a fortress!
All this said, Distin was quoted telling Everton fans not to worry yet –
“I don`t see what huge changes you can make. We`ve been solid for five or six years. Over the past three or four season we`re the third best defence in the league. “It depends how you want to look at it; you can start panicking and thinking “What`s going on?” but I don`t think that`s the right thing to do.’ “We`ve conceded a lot of goals. It`s the Premier League and you get punished. “Maybe we`ve missed a bit of luck, a bit of communication. I don`t think it`s one thing, maybe a few little things together. “If you look at the chances they created it wasn`t that many. We just need to eradicate the mistakes and sort out that miscommunication.”
But what do you guys think is to blame?
Views from the ‘Everton Page’
Totally agree with Lee, Martinez is all about pushing forward whereas the defence often gets forgotten about. Interesting points all round, thanks guys!
I’m already nervous ahead of Saturday’s match, who knows what will happen!
Until next time Blues…
The Toffee Lady 