5 take-aways from Everton 0 Aston Villa 1

Duncan Ferguson couldn’t repeat his heroics of November 2019 when he took temporary charge of Everton again against Aston Villa on Saturday.

Back then he beat Chelsea 3-1 in a invigorating display, unfortunately this time Everton played much like a team should without a permanent manager and only one win in their last 9 league games.

A combative, energised Everton display was counter acted with frantic poor passing and lack of creativity in the final third. Steven Gerrard on the other hand had his Aston Villa side well drilled and in the first half probably deserved the lead they did get in injury time.

To rub salt into the wounds Lucas Digne produced the delivery from a right hand side corner to assist Emiliano Buendia’s near post headed goal in first half injury time. Earlier in the season Rafa Benitez had taken Digne off corner taking duty’s much to the surprise of the Goodison faithful.

In the second half there was no doubt Everton were the better side, after no shots in the first half they produced 15 in the second half. The issue was only one of these shots was on target from a Ben Godfrey header. Other good chances were wasted as Villa were quite happy to sit in and hold on to what they had.

The following pages are going to breakdown and analyse areas of the team selection and individual performances plus the fans sit in protest after the game, starting with Ferguson’s starting line up and tactics.