Tactical breakdown: Where Everton must improve to secure survival
Everton Football Club are living a complicated moment.
Frank Lampard was sacked by the club following a dismal 2-0 defeat at West Ham United last weekend and, in truth, it was a decision that had been a long time coming.
Everton are currently joint-bottom of the Premier League – alongside Southampton – having taken 15 points from the 20 games that they have played so far this term.
Only Wolves have scored fewer than their 15 goals and their tally of 28 goals against does not negate this profligacy in the final third.
The Toffees, a year on from their dramatic escape from relegation in 2021-22, find themselves in another fight for survival.
As Sean Dyche comes in to steady the ship, we make use of the comprehensive Twenty3 Toolbox to take a look at what the Merseyside outfit must do to survive.
The system and personnel
Lampard’s Everton never really settled on a system.
The most commonly used formation in the 20 games that they played in the Premier League this season was a 4-3-3 shape, though a three-man defence was also utilised on numerous occasions.
There are a number of caveats to be considered, however. The most notable is that the Toffees have often been robbed of Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s prodigious ability in the final third due his recurring injury problems.
Anthony Gordon has also missed a significant number of games through injury and has now left to join Newcastle United.
Frequently being without one or both of those star forwards led to Lampard chopping and changing — and that instability ultimately cost him.
The reality
Whichever system they used did not function very well. That is why Everton are where they are.
The only positive for the club ahead of Dyche’s tenure is that things are tight at the bottom. Only six points separate the bottom two sides Southampton and Everton from Nottingham Forest all the way up in 13th.
That means that, while Everton are undoubtedly in the midst of a crisis, Dyche could propel them up the league table rather quickly if he can build a team that does the basics well.
And the 51-year-old Englishman has a track record of doing just that.
He began his coaching career with Watford in 2011 but decamped for Burnley after just one season. He would go on to spend the next decade at Turf Moor, securing them promotion to the Premier League on two occasions and even leading them into the Europa League in 2017-18. Glamorous he might not be – but Dyche can certainly build competent teams.
Building blocks
Everton’s squad is highly disjointed, to put it kindly. But there are positive building blocks there.
Jordan Pickford, the man between the sticks, is most certainly one of them. England’s No1 has oftentimes been the only thing keeping Everton stable in these past couple of seasons and his statistics back up all assertions of his importance.
Pickford has kept three clean sheets in the 19 games he has played so far this season – more than four other Premier League goalkeepers who have played at least 360 minutes. He has conceded 28 goals, fewer than eight other goalkeepers, and saved 73 shots – the third-most of all goalkeepers in the division.
Perhaps the brightest spark at Goodison Park in 2022-23 has been the form of Amadou Onana. The 21-year-old Belgian joined the Toffees during the summer transfer window from French outfit Lille and has taken to English football like a duck to water – so much so that Arsenal and Chelsea are interested in his services.
The good news for Evertonians, however, is that the precocious midfielder is in no rush to leave for pastures new and is intent on helping Everton avoid relegation. And that is a boost to the club – Onana has won 46 tackles and 31 aerial duels so far this term – more than any other midfielder at Everton.
Onana has been important on the ball, too – completing 505 passes, 102 passes into the final third and 24 long balls – all with a very respectable 85.16% accuracy.
The final piece of the puzzle, perhaps, is Calvert-Lewin. The 25-year-old Englishman can do the work of two strikers when he is in full flight – but that has been an all-too-rare occurrence over the past two years.
Troubled by injury, he has featured for just 673 minutes of Premier League football so far this season and contributed a single goal. If he can get fully fit, however, his return could transform Everton’s attack.
More than the sum of their parts
The key for Dyche will be to work with those three aforementioned pillars and build a competent and coherent collective that amounts to more than the sum of their parts. This is what Lampard fundamentally failed to do and that was the reason for his dismissal.
There are other talents to work with at Goodison Park. James Tarkowski and Dwight McNeil are players Dyche knows well from the time they spent together at Burnley, while Alex Iwobi and Demarai Gray have proven themselves to be the most productive attacking talents that Everton have – even if ascertaining where they fit into a Dyche team is tricky.
There is also Idrissa Gueye, a player who was competing in the Champions League and winning league titles with Paris Saint-Germain until last summer. Everton’s squad is not the second-worst in the Premier League – the task at hand for Dyche is to prove it.
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