Cup win shows very worrying Everton defensive weakness that must be addressed

Everton managed to see off Doncaster Rovers in last night’s Carabao Cup second round match after falling behind early on but there were concerning defensive issues highlighted.

The Toffees scraped through 2-1 at the Eco-Power Stadium although they produced one of the worst first forty-five minutes seen for a long time, despite having on paper a strong team on the pitch.

In particular Everton were dire defensively, with both full-backs Nathan Patterson and Vitalii Mykolenko as well as centre-half Micheal Keane all looking very vulnerable and uncertain, again.

In the first half it would have been difficult to say who was the Premier League side if you had never watched any football before.

And, you might well have said if you had been asked, that Doncaster must be the top flight team on the evidence of that period of play.

Rovers went ahead early on and for most of the opening forty-five minutes outplayed the much more expensively acquired visiting team.

There is still just over a day left in the summer transfer window for the Blues to further strengthen their squad.

And on the basis of last night’s display, defensive reinforcements wouldn’t be a bad idea as well as more attacking options.

Things improved after half-time when Sean Dyche made a number of changes including giving a debut to his new forward signing Beto.

The Portuguese certainly impressed as he equalised as well as hitting the woodwork and looking a real dynamic threat.

One other change was to put James Garner at right-back and he improved the shaky defensive effort, which in truth wasn’t hard to do.

This is something I have advocated if the manager is to persist with a flat back-four, after Garner had performed so well in that position for England Under-21s in their Euro’s win earlier this summer.

Long-term this isn’t an ideal solution and Patterson’s struggles this season are really worrying because he looked such a good prospect a year or so ago. However, it could be a solution for now at least.

I would also consider moving Dwight McNeil to left-back when he recovers from injury.

McNeil is a solid player defensively, like Garner, and as with the former Manchester United man, while it might take away from his attacking contribution he could still be an effective overlapping threat.

This would also enable Dyche to put Arnaut Danjuma (who scored Everton’s winner last night) on the left wing, a position he has tended to operate to good effect in the past.

Regardless of tactical decisions, Everton have to add more players before tomorrow night’s transfer deadline. That will not be easy, but the next 24 hours could prove vital to the outcome of this season.