Southampton v Everton: 5 Key Tactical Battles

Lampard must try to turn Goodison form into away performances too

2. Everton and Lampard must keep up the momentum

So far it has been Jekyll and Hyde for Everton under Frank Lampard and the worrying aspect going into the game with Southampton is the one away performance was the Jekyll side of the Lampard era.

Everton have only won once in the Premier League away from home this season, although this was on the south coast also against a team who were in form in Brighton. Numerous defensive errors and a lack of goals at key moments have led to the Toffees having such sticky away form.

In fact since the first week of the season when they did so at Leeds and Brighton, Everton have not taken the lead away from home never mind win a game except for that short lived minute at Newcastle last week. Maybe the players were in shock at such an incident taken place!

However Lampard and his talented backroom staff have had a full week to get the mind set on a very difficult challenge that awaits them at St Mary’s on Saturday. Against Newcastle they basically had only 48 hours to fine tune tactics and see how they recovered from the cup win against Brentford.

Fortunately no more injuries have happened during or since the victory over Leeds, they will have Vitalii Mykolenko back in the squad after his Covid enforced absence.

Also the sight of Abdoulaye Doucoure back in training, although tomorrow will come too soon, will have given everyone a boost. Demarai Gray is also due to be back in training next week.

Therefore I believe Lampard must fight fire with fire on Saturday and possibly go with the same tactics, formation and players that did very well in the comfortable win against Leeds.

This will mean they will match Southampton’s high intense press and the 4-4-2 formation. The only slight alteration will be Anthony Gordon who may be asked to play a more wide role on the left than be inside as much as he was against Leeds. When Everton have the ball it could well switch to a more 4-2-2-2 like last week with Gordon and Iwobi coming inside again.

Against Newcastle the midfield was overrun by their press, however if Donny Van De Beek can reproduce the form of last Saturday they should keep the ball far better.

The only personnel change could be Mykolenko for JonJoe Kenny, but many including myself would feel this would be harsh on Kenny. He was far more positive and productive last week despite switching to the left back role.

It will be so important for Everton to match Southampton early on, last season when Everton had won four out of four at the start it was the Saints who ended the run and basically did so in the first half an hour. The season before Richarlison scored the winner after Tom Davies scored a very early opener and Everton won the game, coincidence I think not!

At least Evertonians can go with more confidence than the previous away games knowing Lampard’s style and hard work is now showing in home performances at least.

Now can they do it away at what will be a windy day on the south coast, at least they know those conditions very well playing on Merseyside.