Well that was entertaining wasn’t it?
I am, of course, being sarcastic. A Merseyside Derby where each side has one shot on target, with ours coming in the 87th minute? Great.
I guess people will want the facts, but the fact of this one was that very few people come out with much credit for us. Joel had another good game and a clean sheet and will surely have a longer run in the side. For Howard to go back in straight away would be unfair. The defence in general was good/okay with Stones having an excellent match.
Other than that, McCarthy being back was a huge bonus and he played in his normal energetic role with Besic and he looking a great partnership. I can’t think of one other person who played well though until Lennon and Barkley injected some pace and guile towards the end.
It’s worth thinking about why that could be, and the main reason has to be the formation and tactics from the manager. Last season clearly spooked him when we were crushed at Anfield and since that point Martinez has gone for a safety-first tactic – something that we thought had been lost when Moyes went to Old Trafford. The swashbuckling belief that we can beat anyone away from home has been lost since that point and the hope that we can stop the oppo scoring and ‘get out alive’ as Moyes would put it has replaced it.
Everton lined up with three central midfielders and just Lukaku up top, who had ‘one of those games’ I’m afraid. He wasn’t helped by our tactics which appeared to be around passing the ball sideways around the defence and central midfield before lumping it towards Lukaku who just didn’t hold the ball up well at all. Can and Skrtel had the beating of him pretty much every time and he very early on seemed to simply give up chasing for the ball back. You look at Sanchez putting pressure on defenders for Arsenal and just wish the Belgian had some of that ability.
It wasn’t until the last ten minutes that Everton started to play in a manner that we’d hoped, with Barkley running forward with the ball – yes, forward! – and spraying passes to the other forwards as they looked to create something. His passes inside the defender for Lennon and Coleman (more below) showed that we did have it in our ranks to do this.
I must admit though, the incredulous manner that the media were clammering for Barkley’s introduction was amusing – they have clearly not seen Barkley stink out Goodison and away grounds with his poor performances this season. There’s clearly a reason why those ‘big’ clubs haven’t been knocking at our door this season wanting to take him off our hands. In this game though he should have been given longer – Naismith’s injury was the perfect chance to put him on but the Scot weirdly stayed on. Probably cos he tackles more.
This RS side were there for the taking though. One shot that hit the post apart, they had nothing that would worry us, and Stevie Me’s Tour Of The World hit the buffers as he produced probably his most ineffective display against us in living memory. Which was nice.
There is then the strange case of Seamus Coleman. Last season’s stand-out player at times, he has seemingly forgotten how to play football. So many times he would get the ball and, instead of getting to the byline with a surging run, would pass it back or knock it out of play. I didn’t count one cross that didn’t hit a defender or just balloon out of play. It would have been quite ironic for him to score the winner in the last minute and for that game to be known as the ‘Coleman Derby’. Even then his shot was perfect for the keeper to palm away. If he’d scuffed it towards the near post we’d be celebrating a win!
All in all we should perhaps be happy with a point and another game unbeaten with a clean sheet, but the feeling seems to be that we are scrapping for our lives and not looking ahead and putting teams away with the ability we thought we had out there on the pitch, which is a shame.
Anyway, I hear we are signing the player who has just been given the ‘player of the tournament’ award at the African Nations. Can’t wait to hear who that is…. Hang on? Atsu? WTF?!?
Oh, and 10 points to anyone who gets the reference in the post title…