5 take-aways from Everton 0 Aston Villa 1

Ferguson’s selection and tactics contribute to poor first half performance

1. Duncan’s Selection & Tactics

The streets around Goodison Park had been more lively than previous weeks. Duncan Ferguson being in temporary charge again meant Evertonians had something to be passionate about again.

The pubs near Goodison had been given a memo by Ferguson to buy everyone a drink on him, a ploy to get Goodison rocking or more of a statement to say I’m one of you. More of the latter I think as the atmosphere with Steven Gerrard and Lucas Digne back would have been lively anyway.

This enthusiasm and passion may have been slightly diluted when the teamsheets dropped. Neither of the new full back signings were in the squad at all, Seamus Coleman dropped to the bench in favour of JonJoe Kenny and a two man midfield which had been one of Rafa Benitez’s questioned tactics.

Another interesting aspect was giving Yerry Mina the captaincy. Ferguson’s options were limited however, but this seemed a strange choice with Mina having missed many games through injury this season. Jordan Pickford or Abdoulaye Doucoure were surely more sensible options in what was always going to be a competitive game.

The two man midfield was again overran in the first half, although Doucoure did well to intercept many Villa attacks.

With Villa’s full backs being the only width options both Kenny and Ben Godfrey seemed a little bit confused in whether to defend the full back or the midfielders inside. More on Kenny especially on the next slide.

With the midfield numbers Villa took advantage to get Ramsay, Buendia and Coutinho on the ball at every opportunity. This meant Everton were also limited to get the ball up the field quickly and efficiently. Therefore Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin hardly had any service in the first half.

Only when Anthony Gordon came on for Andros Townsend did Everton start making good chances. The right hand side was very immobile until this point, Gordon come on and gave life to the attack.

Also the decision to start Mason Holgate was a big question mark and again didn’t really pay off. Surely Jarrad Branthwaite when ready has to be given a chance? This may not have been Ferguson’s first choice as an injury niggle to Vitaliy Mykolenko prevented him from being in the matchday squad. Also Nathan Patterson was mysteriously absent for unknown reasons.

Tactically Ferguson didn’t really match up with Villa’s system and this probably cost Everton momentum in the first half. Whether Allan, who did well when he replaced Andre Gomes, was not quite fully fit after missing most of training all last week due to a positive Covid test we do not know, but it seems the option was there to play a midfield three.

In the second half Everton got the ball up to Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison quicker and more often. Demarai Gray had been well marshalled by Matt Cash, although Cash should have been booked earlier than he was, and Gordon got the ball in useful areas so much in the last 20 minutes it was a surprise an equaliser did not come.

While Everton had more fight and were more combative than recently the players were clearly lacking in confidence and creativity. Ferguson could not fix these shortcomings in a few days, the question is will he still be in charge for the next game against Brentford in the FA Cup in two weeks?

My thoughts are that after today’s defeat the owner Farhad Moshiri will seek to get someone in before the Brentford cup game. After that there is three crucial league fixtures where points will be required which mean whoever the new manager is they will need to hit the ground running.