Draw at Leeds perfectly shows Everton strengths and weaknesses

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The only other change Benitez made from the eleven that had taken to the pitch against the Saints was to bring in Alex Iwobi for Andros Townsend.

Given the financial constraints he is under Benitez has to try and get the most out of his existing squad players especially if the club can’t move them on.

Whisper it again but has Iwobi found the manager who can finally coax a decent footballer out of the infuriatingly erratic former Arsenal man?

While many Evertonians might not agree I think we’ve seen very occasional glimpses of Iwobi’s ability to run with the ball last season. And yesterday he got a vote of confidence from his manager by starting and without doing anything dazzling, played some good passes making his contribution to moving the ball on quickly and effeciently.

This brings me to the main positive from yesterday’s match and that is the way in which the Toffees have already shown a much more dynamic offensive approach than last season and more so than I actually expected from Benitez.

When Ancelotti departed It seemed that what Everton ideally needed was a coach willing to embrace a more dynamic, pressing and high-tempo mentality as the Blues recent football, certainly this calendar year anyway, has so often been slow and ineffective.

The main concern I had with Benitez taking the job was his reputation as a cautious and defensive coach with a pretty rigid tactical approach whose primary focus was on making his sides hard to break down. Had the game passed him by?

To be fair I think this reputation for overly defensive football has been influenced to some extent by Benitez’s time at Newcastle United when without the money to make any significant attacking signings he set his Magpies sides up to be stubborn and as hard as possible to beat.

And it was true Benitez had built a very good attacking side at Liverpool in his last few years there so perhaps what best describes him is pragmatism, essentially like his predecessor Ancelotti.

Anyway, his transfer dealings and tactics since taking over at Goodison Park have shown his football intelligence and flexibility and how he has immediately identified the need for much more pace, width and creativity in attack.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that this team needed that injection of pace and width, but still he has gone out and made several shrewd signings, depsite the lack of money, and got the players in he needs to do just that. An he has quickly integrated Richarlison into this more direct approach.

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I also think it’s clever thinking on his part to get his sides playing that quick straightforward attacking football as it’s certainly going to quickly get the home supporters on his side.

As an aside, Benitez can thank Ancelotti for sorting out to a considerable extent the midfield as that has allowed him to concentrate on the attacking part of the team. And Allan and Abdoulaye Doucoure were both excellent yesterday underlining the improvement they have made there.

In particular at Leeds yesterday one important thing we saw was the Toffees move from defence to counter-attack swiftly and smoothly and do so without overcomplicating their play.

Too many times last season and indeed in seasons before that, Everton were guilty of playing slow and methodical football that hampered their ability to ‘transition’ effectively as it’s now called. So they were often caught out and then defensively exposed by opponents who pressed well in midfield and won the ball back quickly.

There’s a fluidity as well about how this new-look attack is playing with Richarlison and Gray especially operating freely and popping up on both flanks and centrally.

Yesterday, while Leeds dominated for long periods the away team coped with that generally, counter-attacked well and offered plenty of threat throughout the game. They also matched their hosts for shots and had twice as many on target too. More of this for the rest of the season and it will bode well for the team’s chances in 2021-22.