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Everton may need last season’s defence after Watford debacle

By Matt Townsend

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 23: A despondent Séamus Coleman of Everton during the Premier League match between Everton and Watford at Goodison Park on October 23, 2021 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 23: A despondent Séamus Coleman of Everton during the Premier League match between Everton and Watford at Goodison Park on October 23, 2021 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images) /
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Rafa Benitez has been speaking about the defensive problems so evident in Saturday’s 5-2 defeat for Everton against Watford. Perhaps he should consider reverting to last season’s defence.

The manner of the defensive collapse by Everton on Saturday will live long in the memory of anyone who was there or saw it afterwards. It was one of the most ridiculous and bizarre spectacles I’ve ever seen in any professional football match.

As I said earlier this week, these kind of dreadful performances are actually not new for this team and any Toffees fan will have plenty of bad memories of similar recent disasters.

However, this was perhaps the most worrying given the relative quality of the opposition and the circumstances coming into the match.

We witnessed senior players, professional footballers supposedly, tackling their own team-mates and making the kind of fundamental, basic errors you might expect in a Sunday afternoon game in a local park, not the Premier League!

If it wasn’t so disasterous it would have been almost comical. And all this happened in the space of about fifteen minutes.

Anyway, it’s now clear to Benitez if it wasn’t before that there are major issues with the quality of his defenders and their mental or psychological resiliance. I don’t know how he can overcome these mental issues, maybe he needs to employ a club psychologist to work on these players?

The January transfer window is coming up in just over two months time and so that will represent a potential chance for the manager to try and improve his options.

But, in the meantime what can he do to improve this defence with a lot of matches, eleven Premier League games to go, before that window opens.

There are two fixtures coming up now and then another international break. First the Blues travel to Wolverhampton Wanderers on Monday night and then face Spurs at Goodison Park on 7th November. It seems to me they have to get something from both of those matches.