Is there a danger Everton are overplaying James
As Everton fell to a first defeat of the season at Southampton yesterday, could there be a danger that they are overplaying star man James Rodriguez?
The first point to make is obviously if he’s fully fit then of course he should be in the team as he’s become essential to how Everton now play.
Manager Carlo Ancelotti was understandably desperate to have him available for the game. However, it didn’t seem as though he was 100% fit yesterday and after a decent start he faded later in the second half as the Toffees were struggling to find a way back into the match.
So could this relentless amount of football lead to him becoming blunted and less effective? First of all, let’s just hope that he hasn’t suffered further complications to his knock last weekend and isn’t going to end up spending longer out than would have been the case.
While it can be argued that even a half-fit Rodriguez is better than nothing, I think there could be a danger that he is playing so often that it might lead to him suffering a more serious injury and being out for much longer.
The Colombian has had a long history of injury problems and so given that fact, the Blues need to take care to ensure he is kept in the best possible condition. We don’t want him to end up missing a large chunk of the season because hes not had a chance to recover.
This is particularly important as he is playing his first season in English football, dealing with it’s unique rigours. And because of the upheaval caused by the Covid outbreak, the current campaign is even more condensed and intense than usual.
He also played almost the entire 180 minutes of his country’s two World Cup qualifiers during the recent international break, which I don’t think helped.
Games are coming thick and fast and we are nearing the run-in to Christmas and the New Year when traditionally a lot of matches are played over those few holiday weeks.
That is also a period of the season when Everton don’t tend to do well and so having key players fit and healthy, if at all possible, is very important.
Critical to achieving this however, is having squad players who can come in and perform reasonably well in his place so giving Rodriguez a breather when he’s not 100%.
As we’ve said before no one can replace his quality, but he’s not going to be available all the time and the team have to find a way to do without him every now and then. Games like yesterday’s at Southampton are the sort of matches where perhaps he could be rested occasionally.
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However, this match showed that unfortunately Everton don’t seem to have any players who can, even to some small extent, fill in for him.
Without Rodriguez at his sharpest and with Richarlison out, the Toffees struggled and lacked the cutting edge and quality to really trouble their opponents at all.
Gylfi Sigurdsson was poor and Alex Iwobi had a dreadfully ineffective game playing on the left in place of the Brazilian. This was a golden opportunity for these two to make an impression and give Carlo Ancelotti some options. They couldn’t do so.
What was even more concerning was the return of the sort of lacklustre performances we saw last season from such players. Really good teams find a way to win, or at least not lose, difficult games when they are under-strength.
So plenty of food for thought then for the manager and it’s a possibility that he might have to go into the January transfer window and strengthen again to maintain the progress made this season.