As the half way point in the 2010/11 English Premier League season approaches a pattern of frustration has been set for Evertonians.
Following on from the excellent tactical and statistical analysis of our season so far by the executioners bong it's clear that there are a number of fundamental problems that David Moyes will need to solve if Everton are to turn the corner and move up the table.
Firstly Everton this season have shown the problems that are caused through having an unbalanced team. Our attacking strength/defensive weakness down the left and attacking weakness/defensive strength down the right makes it easy for teams to set a game plan to either attack us or nulify our threat depending on their mindset. This inbalance is nothing new for Everton (barring Landon Donovan's loan period in early 2010) but has been brought into sharp focus through the bluntness of our attack this season. As the executioners bong mentions the attributes of our current strikeforce means that opponents can defend high up the pitch, press our midfield and generally lends itself to a rather one-dimensional style of play.
So how have we got here? In my opinion it is an unfortunate symptom of the business model that the club is following which allows zero transfer budget. I am not advocating that the club spends money it hasn't got, but it does impose certain pressures on the manager and the team:
- Serious injuries to players pose a greater problem for Everton than many other premier league clubs because not only can they diminish a player's essential qualities but in turn this has a knock-on effect to their sell on value. Drops in form can also not be accommodated.
Everton's team is built around a system including a lone striker. Louis Saha and Yakubu have both proved adept at playing this system in the past, however both have suffered with injuries and loss of form. The result is we have gone from one of the higher goalscoring teams in the premier league to one of the lower. Between them Yakubu and Saha have one goal this season. Neither are now have the pace to run in behind the defence which limits our counter-attacking options and means that our build up has to be slow and methodical. It also means that their transfer values have fallen significantly from their peak.
- Our ability to build a balanced team is entirely reliant on being able to sell players at a profit. As well as the issues caused by serious injuries mentioned above, this gives Moyes no room whatsoever for mistakes in the transfer market. It also makes it hard for us to spend money on experienced players whose sell-on value isn't likely to be recouped and means that we cannot afford to let players run out of contract.
When Everton sold Lescott last season Moyes replaced him with Distin, Heitinga and Bilyetdinov. Of those purchases Bilyetdinov is currently looking like a mistake. Personally i still think Bily could come good but Moyes's refusal to start him this season suggests he doesn't agree with me. Distin has been one of our best performers this year and whilst Heitinga has been poor this season, he has been played out of position and has a sufficiently good reputation to make back our initial outlay should Moyes wish. So one possible mistake out of three, not bad you would think - a lot of managers would kill for that success ratio (wouldn't they Rafa?). But it's not good enough for Everton as our strategy does not allow for any mistakes. It was a missed opportunity to solve our right midfield problems and an expensive one at that.
This summer Everton had the opportunity to sell Mikel Arteta for a very large fee but instead chose to break the clubs wage structure and offer him a bumper new contract. At the time I and every other Evertonian were over the moon. 'Finally a sign of ambition' we shouted! In hindsight I think this might have been a mistake, not because of the effect of breaking the wage structure (although that may yet prove to be a problem) but because it went against the overall strategy. Whilst selling your best players runs counter to every manager and fans wishes it is at least a logical and rational strategy. By not selling Arteta we missed out on our chance to finally balance our squad with a top striker and a decent right midfielder.One individual is not more important than the team. The heart ruled the head and if there is one thing you have to remember as a manager of a club completely reliant on selling players to buy new ones, it is never let your heart rule your head.
It sounds like i'm blaming Moyes but in I actually believe it's just an unfortunate fact that our strategy allows the manager no room whatsoever for the errors of judgement which he quite naturally has from time to time.
So where do we go from here? If we are to see an improvement in our fortunes this season I believe that we Evertonians are going to have to sit down and take some bad medicine. Whilst most of us could probably cope with selling Heitinga, Yakubu, Saha or Bilyetdinov I think we might have to face facts and accept that those players are unlikely to fetch sufficient transfers fees to allow us to balance this team. The loss of bodies from doing this alone would probably leave the squad weakened. Therefore I think the best option we have may be to sell one 'key player', someone who on their own could command a transfer fee of £20m - for that read Arteta, Fellaini, Rodwell or maybe, at a push Jagielka. It will not be nice for any of us, but then nothing worth having ever comes easy though folks....
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