The art of Attacking and Defending

[steken1]

I remember an interview with Alex Ferguson and he commented along the lines of;

"I look at each player and know how many each one will score for me, and I know roughly how many we will concede. I can see us scoring 90 and conceding 35 and that's enough for the title"

Looking at our own GD this season a few things stood out. Our's was +10. Spurs and Arsenal were +25.

We scored 50 and conceded 40.

At the start of the season we weren't scoring and we conceded a lot of sloppy goals up to Heitinga coming in for Jagielka.

I think if we carry on in a similar way to how we finished is it reasonable to expect another 10 goals on top of that next season?

Also, We are very defensively solid now. Can we expect us to concede 10 less?

If that happened we would have a GD of +30. That would be second only to the septic's. Who knows where that could take us?

Is it pie in the sky or with a lucky run with injuries could it happen

 

[Dom1878]

Jagielka and heitinga at the back and we are solid. Just had a shaky start to the season, to be honest I think it was because we didn't really have a defensive mid

 

[davek]

What's the comparison between goals scored/conceded after Jelavic made his real debut (post groin op)? That'll give you a clearer picture than the whole season's stats.

 

[steken1]

To be honest DaveK, I thought that meself but was far too lazy to go and find out.

I think we may fall a bit short and maybe add 5 goals to it and concede 5 less too. That would be good enough to challenge for the CL spots by the looks of it though.

 

[manxtoffee]

More of the fact Moyes sh¡ts himself if we score, Fergie doesn't.







Edit: Fixtures/Results here: http://www.evertonfc.com/match/premier-league-football-fixtures.html

 

[RFUS]

We actually had a fine season defensively. Yes we had a few individual errors but we had the joint 3rd best defence in the league, which is well above what we would have been expected to have.

I'd look at scoring more and building on the strong defensive foundation we have. Up until recently our goals per game ratio was abysmal, and even by the end it still wasn't great. Jelavic made a big, big difference as did -- in my opinion -- the absence of Cahill. We scored four goals three times when Cahill wasn't starting, and actually looked like scoring even more, thanks to the play of Pienaar, Osman and Fellaini in and around the area Cahill normally inhabits.

A bit of right sided balance would be nice too. We also scored four those three times without Baines, showing that an over-reliance on our left flank isn't a good thing, in my opinion. Unlike Cahill I'm not saying that Baines' absence allowed better play in his position, as Distin is no Baines, but as we knew that we looked to him less than we do to Leighton, and instead looked to a wider spread of players. This is what we should be doing from now on, as a team with just one plan of attack -- Barcelona aside -- rarely get the better of teams for long.

Pace, finally, is something else we should seek. Drenthe did wonders in his brief spells as did Landon, and their pace was a big part of that. It's very difficult to counter-attack without pace, and counter-attacking is a great route for more goals -- especially for a team that can sit back and defend comfortably. Additionally having a player who can win possession so routinely, and immediately look to turn that into an attack, is invaluable for a counter-attack approach... and we have one of the best in the league at the moment for that: Marouane Fellaini.

It's easier said than done for a team with no money, but there are players who can be sold who were not intrinsic to our patches of success this season. A bit of smart transfer rotation (Jelavic in, Bily out was a great example) can make a big difference.

 

[manxtoffee]

What's the comparison between goals scored/conceded after Jelavic made his real debut (post groin op)? That'll give you a clearer picture than the whole season's stats.

Tbh Dave and besides what I said above we were predictable before the loanees came in January, albeit the confidence of the squad wasn't great either. Had we started with the loanees(Peanut-Jela & Donovan)at the start of the season I seriously think we'd made the CL places with considerable ease.

 

[steken1]

What's the comparison between goals scored/conceded after Jelavic made his real debut (post groin op)? That'll give you a clearer picture than the whole season's stats.

Just had a look and by my reckoning we scored 20 goals in our first 19 league games. We must have scored 30 after that. Extrapolated over a season we may well look to score 60.

I didn't do the defensive one cos it's Saturday and I'm off oot.

 

[steken1]

One other thing I noticed. Jelavic didn't start scoring until March.

He's gonna be a beast next season.

 

[toffeejack]

Tbh Dave and besides what I said above we were predictable before the loanees came in January, albeit the confidence of the squad wasn't great either. Had we started with the loanees(Peanut-Jela & Donovan)at the start of the season I seriously think we'd made the CL places with considerable ease.

can see what you'r saying but we wouldn't have achieved it with ease, think we could have challenged though. Bad 1st half bollox was because we had no creativity and we did defend well from the start just the odd mistake or wonder goal was always scored against us. Think we could be in real good shape to get a top 5 finish this season dependant on a good summer

 

[davek]

To be honest DaveK, I thought that meself but was far too lazy to go and find out.

I think we may fall a bit short and maybe add 5 goals to it and concede 5 less too. That would be good enough to challenge for the CL spots by the looks of it though.

Tbh Dave and besides what I said above we were predictable before the loanees came in January, albeit the confidence of the squad wasn't great either. Had we started with the loanees(Peanut-Jela & Donovan)at the start of the season I seriously think we'd made the CL places with considerable ease.

21 for and 12 against from that Spurs match when Jelavic announced himself.

It's a bit unrealistic to expect that to continue, but if we can keep him free of injury and in form even Moyes natural defensiveness early in a season shouldn't stop us scoring a lot more than we concede. If we get Jelavic service and a partner for those games we should be going all out to win we could put pressure on top 6.

Lot of ifs there though, and I again doubt we'll solve the RM problem and *know* Moyes wont play two out and out strikers from the off in games.