Everton must find identity and right balance to make progress

Everton again last night slipped up in their pursuit of European football as they couldn’t find the right balance and combine excellent attacking football with defensive solidity.

Last night Everton had a slender 2-1 lead over fellow European chasing Tottenham but then a second defensive lapse cost them two more points.

This match last night is the story of the season in one 90 minute game. When the Blues have been playing great attacking football they’ve been letting lots of goals in at the other end.

Then when Carlo Ancelotti has responded to this problem and his injuries by reverting to a more defensive posture, the goals dried up and the Toffees struggled to win games.

At the start of the season Everton were playing the best football seen at Goodison Park in quite a while with James Rodriguez in particular pulling the strings and coordinating that attacking play, just as he did last night.

But the team were conceding a lot at the same time and defensive frailties were evident even if it didn’t matter while the team were scoring lots.

Then injuries to a set of players after the first international break undermined that great start and Everton started losing games again in much the same way they were last season.

After a major wobble Ancelotti decided to go back to a much more defensive formation and tactics to shore up that leaky defence.

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And it worked with the Blues going on an unbeaten run in December that revived the season. But the team were becoming increasingly defensive in their mentality and often forwards Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison were starved of enough service.

It seems that whatever Ancelotti tries he can’t get that balance right, at least with these players and again last night Everton created plenty of chances and scored twice but it wasn’t enough and defensive errors again let them down.

Last night it was the return of the kind of individual mistakes that had plagued this team so often under previous managers like Marco Silva.

It had seemed that the Blues were erridicating that problem during the course of this season but perhaps it hasn’t been overcome after all.

Whether the Toffees can make Europe – and I don’t think they will without a significant collapse in the form of other teams around them – the club have to solve some very significant issues this summer. The club must find a way to erridicate individual mistakes as much as possible and find a style or way of playing that they can consistently replicate.