Southampton v Everton: 5 takeaways as Away Day Blues Strike Again

Holgate and Kenny back to type in another poor defensive display

1. Another poor Everton defensive display

While the game started with Everton on the front foot and showing their high press like against Leeds the week before, it ended with the usual poor defensive display and players not performing at Premier League level.

Mason Holgate in particular had a very poor display and numerous times he headed the ball into areas where Southampton could attack straight away. Rather than heading it out to wider positions, he would head it straight back in the middle, a couple of these actually started the Saints revival after Everton dominated territory for the first twenty minutes.

His poor management of the game was also in evidence in the second half when he got dragged to far over to leave acres of space for Armstrong to score the first goal.

One moment summed it up for me when rather than clearing it for a throw-in on his weaker left foot he just gave a corner away by clearing in a more comfortable way with his favourable right foot. Thankfully the flag then went up and offside had been given instead.

Holgate’s body language was poor throughout and has been a constant nagging problem for many Evertonians in the last year. Surely when Ben Godfrey is fit again he has to come in for Holgate.

While Holgate was poor, he was not the only one in the back four. Jonjoe Kenny also played back to type after a very good performance last week. The pass where he tried to play it with the outside of his right foot and went straight out of play summed it all up. He also let Armstrong get his shot away too easily for the first all important goal.

Seamus Coleman was also not on his game at Southampton, maybe trying to play this high octane intense style means he cannot do it week in and week out. Coleman seemed to tire very quickly and Kyle Walker-Peters was strolling past him late in the second half. Also the way Shane Long bullied him to head in the second goal showed his fatigue.

Lampard needs to change the defence for me, albeit with the injuries to Yerry Mina and Godfrey he is a little tied to use what he has at the moment in central defence especially.

It says a lot when Michael Keane was by far the best defender on the day and to be fair Che Adams and Armando Broja were marshalled well in the first half. Although a couple of dangerous set pieces we were lucky to get away with, Broja somehow hitting the bar from three yards being the closest they came from these.

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