A Balanced Setup

Sean Dyche had outlined at length the problems afflicting the Everton squad well before the team arrived at the King Power Stadium, for Saturday’s match against fellow strugglers Leicester City. The infamous list of potentially unavailable players the beleaguered Blues boss produced, in what was an unusual moment to commence Thursday’s pre-game press conference, appeared – to the cynical amongst us – to offer a ready-made alibi for a possible negative result two days later. In the end, five of those dozen players made the matchday squad, and four started.

Depth would obviously be an issue, given Everton’s squad is not the deepest and only eight substitutes were named, including two goalkeepers (when will this ever end?) and a couple of youngsters — although Roman Dixon now has two first team starts under his belt, including one in the Premier League. With some uncertainty as to who would make the team, Dyche surprised a few by handing James Garner his debut at right back, a concern given he’d struggled playing there for a spell as a substitute at Villa Park.

With a week’s training and especially so, considering he’d been ill in the days beforehand, the midfielder coped reasonably well — enough to show he can be trusted to handle the position, should specialist senior right backs be unavailable. In midfield, Dyche got the balance right, electing to pair Orel Mangala with Abdoulaye Doucoure, the latter fielded in a deeper role that’s become the exception, rather than the norm for him. Rather than being utilized as an ad hoc support striker, the Malian looked far more comfortable operating in his preferred position, breaking up play effectively — making a combined five tackles and interceptions, along with three blocks.

Fears that his athleticism may be a thing of the past were proven false, as the 31-year-old covered a lot of ground, leading the team with nine ball recoveries. Alongside, a fitter-looking Mangala proved a complementary presence, utilizing his strong positional awareness to make three interceptions and offered a calming influence in possession. His 57 touches ranked second behind Ashley Young and a pass completion percentage of 91.7 topped all players in the game. It’s possible Dyche may have found his best midfield combination.

Photo by Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images

Jesper Lindstrom was handed a start off an encouraging EFL Cup performance midweek and though plagued again with erratic finishing in front of goal, the winger continues to show the kind of threat that’s been absent on Everton’s right flank for a long time. With Iliman Ndiaye the team’s star man on the left, courtesy of a fantastic goal and some impressive pieces of play, this wing tandem looks to be by far the best option. Ndiaye is more of an individual, a maverick talent who loves to get on the ball and is a box of tricks, whereas the Dane is probably quicker and makes excellent runs in behind the defence. This is a highly promising duo.

Negative Adjustments

Everton started the game very strongly and were well in control by half time, despite the arrival of horrendous weather conditions, which must have affected the players to varying degrees. The visitors commanded a solid share of possession (46%), out-shot the Foxes by eleven to four and in xG (Expected Goals) terms, by 0.76 to a paltry 0.11. After the interval, the Blues carried on much as before, carrying much more threat than the hosts, so it came as a surprise that the manager decided to remove Lindstrom in the 61st minute, immediately after the winger had come close to putting Ndiaye clean through for what would have been an almost certain goal.

The Dane had been causing the Leicester defence plenty of problems, but with the introduction of Jack Harrison as his replacement, the pattern of the contest began to shift. The Foxes became bolder, pushing forward on Everton’s right flank. The Blues had a good chance on the break in the 65th, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin, but now the visitors were sitting deeper and offering no threat whatsoever down the right. Whatever Harrison’s strengths are, he has no pace, cannot beat a man and struggles to impact the game offensively. In half an hour on the pitch, he touched the ball 15 times and managed no shots.

Dyche rates Harrison for his work-rate, but to what end? As soon as the on-loan Leeds United man came on, the hosts focused much of their play down his side of the pitch. He’s often caught marking nobody, just empty space. When he closes down the ball receiver, he’s so far away and moves sufficiently slowly that he’s easy to pass around. This happened often and Garner became increasingly exposed as a result. Lindstrom contributed a combined five tackles and interceptions, in addition to a blocked pass; Harrison two tackles. He also lost the ball five times, so what exactly is he offering? There’s no reason to start him over the ex-Napoli man.

In the 73rd minute, the visitors were pegged back and – infuriatingly – they let in another simple set-piece goal — a third this season, across all competitions. Defending corners and free kicks should be strengths, given Everton possess plenty of tall players, and how much of a focus Dyche places on structure and organization. A low-scoring side like the Blues cannot afford to be giving away “soft” goals from set-plays and individual errors. The margins are too tight.

Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images

In the 81st Ndiaye was substituted off for Tim Iroegbunam, in what was a clear sign that Dyche was now focused entirely on escaping the King Power with what would be a first point of the season. He spent the closing stages off the match frantically waving players to drop back into a defensive shell. This was understandable, but also disappointing, because Leicester were not a good team, at all. With Ndiaye’s exit departed what remained of Everton’s counterattacking threat. The manager moved Dwight McNeil to the left and pushed up Doucoure into an advanced position, with Iroegbunam sitting deep. Why?

The 21-year-old’s strengths, as everyone has seen since he arrived in the summer, are offensively-geared. He’s great at aggressively pressing opponents, creating turnovers and driving forward with the ball. What he is not, is a positionally-aware defensive midfielder, yet this is where he was used. In ten minutes, he lost the ball twice, was dribbled past on two occasions and misplaced half of his four passes. Doucoure, who’d been playing effectively, was suddenly a phantom, chasing shadows upfield.

The Blues manager is regularly criticized for his reluctance to make substitutions – something he appears to take perverse pride in – but in this match every change he made produced a negative effect.

A Sobering Final Thought

In the light of breaking news as I was finishing up this piece, that Everton have been purchased, out of the blue, by the Friedkin Group – subject to approval by a trio of regulatory bodies, the Premier League itself being the most involved – comes a final thought: what may occur, and its lasting effects. With just one point secured from the opening five matches, the possibility of relegation cannot be just blithely shrugged off, even if there is a long, long way to go in the season. This has been, by any measure an awful start to the campaign.

I’m only discussing it really, based on what I watched at the King Power. Some elements of the fan base have – on occasion – talked up the club falling out of the top flight as some kind of opportunity for a reset. This simply cannot be entertained. Consider the case of Leicester, a club who had themselves dropped out of the division in 2023. A season prior, they’d finished eighth and had played in the Europa League group stages and subsequently, the Conference League semi-final.

A little over a year ago they had class players such as James Maddison, Harvey Barnes, Youri Tielemans lining up for them. Now? The side which rallied to get a point from Everton were a sorely reduced outfit, following a year in the Championship and an exodus of top talent. They were so poor that – despite them having drawn three of their five opening league games – I can’t see them actually winning many, which makes it even more galling that the Toffees were unable to hang on for the three points.

A club facing financial issues, as the Foxes were, have returned to the top tier after one year away, and just look at the difference. They’ve gone from a team which should not really have been involved in a relegation battle in the 2022/23 campaign, to a promoted outfit who are deservedly one of the favourites for the drop. Should the Toffees go down, there’s little chance they’d bounce straight back up, but even if they managed it, they’d be the sort of cannon-fodder that Leicester currently are. That is a sobering thought.

Putting gloomy thoughts to one side, news of the Friedkin’s soon-to-be-confirmed status as the new owners of Everton FC is bright indeed, offering as it does a chance to pull the club out of the Sargasso Sea they’ve been drifting around in now for more than three years. Awaiting is a paradigm shift: free of Farhad Moshiri and the baggage of the past, with fresh energy and ideas, the promise of financial stability, executive direction and a brand new, world-class stadium waiting on the banks of the Royal Blue Mersey.

Statistics provided courtesy of fbref.com, fotmob.com, whoscored.com and sofascore.com