What's the plan?

[CahillsCornerFlag]

Assume that the plan is to play quick, incisive pass and move football with top off the ball movement from clever players. That way you don't rely on actual pace. DCL will have to become a top target man though in order for this to work, and I actually reckon the lad has all the attributes to make it happen. If we line up with say;

Rooney Klaassen Sigurdsson
Calvert-Lewin

Then that front four has enough intelligence and movement to worry most teams if DCL can hold the ball up. Add say, Gana from midfield who seems to be playing box to box this season and I think that's how he wants us to play from the off.

Plan B as far as I can tell is pace, throw Lookman and Vlasic on on the flanks and see if they can make something happen.

 

[blulouie]

When's Oumar coming on?

When Unsy say's so.

 

[Steve Wigan]

Hello mein frandels

I will try and keep this short (rather than the excellent prose written by @catcherintherye and others) because any more than 500 words and I'll be running out of letters.

Now the transfer window has closed and we are a season into the Ronald Trump / Steve Walsh Revolution, what do you think the intended plan or style of play is for this version of the mighty Blues?

The last senior game before Koeman joined, we lined up like this

Howard
Pennington (Kenny)
Stones
Jagielka
Baines
McCarthy (Lennon)
Barry
Dowell (Barkley)
Davies
Mirallas
Lukaku

Broadly speaking (and not including the general mayhem of the Martinez final two seasons) the club played a certain way - even at junior level. 4 at the back, a strong base in midfield, a player roaming behind the striker(s) and either wingers and one striker, or one defensive midfielder two strikers two wingers (the latter more common in Unsworth's sides than with Martinez). The general idea was to get the ball to the man behind the strikers (Barkley at senior level, Dowell at junior) would in theory either play in the striker or play it wide for a cross. The six at the back (defenders / midfielders) would provide the strong base (again, worked well first season, theory fell apart entirely in the second).

Go forward to 11th March 2017. Koeman had been here a while, Walsh had had two windows to work in, and we win 3-0 at home against West Brom, who at that point were one position behind us in the league.

Robles
Coleman
Jagielka
Williams
Baines (Funes Mori)
Schneiderlin
Barry (DCL)
Barkley
Davies
Mirallas (Gueye)
Lukaku

Again, the manager's ideas and intended style of play was pretty obvious here. Solid defensive platform and control the game. Get a goal and shut down the game, knowing that your centre forward was always likely to score a half chance to put you two (or in this case three) up and kill the game entirely. You couldn't rely on Lukaku to keep the ball for you in the final third but that didn't really matter as you could strangle the life out midfield and the defensive third with two of three from Barry, Schneiderlin and Gueye. The side had goals in it (hence the many different scorers) so again, it wasn't critical to get it to Lukaku immediately - he'd likely score at some point anyway.

Let's go to this season and the recent defeat at Chelsea, following a disjointed (rather than unsuccessful) start to the season.


Pickford
Keane
Williams
Jagielka (Lennon)
Holgate
Davies (Besic)
Gueye
Baines
Rooney
Sigurdsson
Ramírez (DCL)


Broadly speaking that lineup has most of what you would say are the 'better' Everton players in it (minus the injured Klaassen, Bolasie, Coleman etc and the suspended Schneiderlin). You can see where the injured players would naturally sub in here (apart from Bolasie).

What is the intended style of play here? What plan have the signings been brought into to implement or improve upon?

You're not going to see pacey full back play from Baines / Holgate, who in theory are released more from their defensive duties because of the three centre backs.

Perhaps you've got more control in the final third than when we had Lukaku, but you've also got a very congested area for these players to work in (usually not a positive) and on current evidence unlikely to have a player who will score you 1 goal every 2 games, sometimes out of very little.

Unlike nearly every successful top tier club in the world this season (or in recent seasons) you've got no change of pace, very little explosive movement, and not much in the way of 10+ goals from midfield type players.

With the possible exception of Pickford and Keane, you've got little quality distribution from the back, (not 'the goalkeeper', just Pickford, as if Robles or Stek subs in you lose possibility this instantly). I include the full backs here.

My general argument here is that there doesn't seem to be much joined up thinking at the moment, no identifiable style of play, nor the recruitment to actualise it. Both Koeman and Walsh came from sides where they had implemented a playing style; Koeman a hold-up striker with pacy support [Pelle / Mane], Walsh had a deep-lying midfielder (Drinkwater) spraying long passes to pacy wingers (Mahrez) and a pacy, in-form striker (Vardy) who would be assisted in the dirty work by an industrious support striker (often Okazaki). Currently, I can't see what we are trying to achieve.

An A for the English Language, go to a college of your choice....actually a good,clear, thoughtful post which like all similar good essays, asks some good questions without malice and without resorting to cyber heckling. Personally I think that the long term injury to Bolassie ,even more than Coleman, has effected Koemans thinking,and while we had a pretty good window in regard to getting his first choices in, it is plain that he is prepared to use stop gaps or deserving youngsters until he can get what he wants. I'm sure that we will have no fixed way of playing, and on occasions Koeman will overthink tactics...much preferable to Martinez not thinking at all. Koeman wants a core of 17/18 'first teamers', each knowing their specific job and in some cases, more than one job. Rooney will 'float' for example, between striker(stand in striker?) and midfielder sprayer of 'boss balls all over the gaff',as some one else said so eloquently on here recently. Siggarsson will find his correct,effective game for Everton and so will others. The 'stop gaps'(Williams,one or two others) are keeping places warm for Koemans choice. We will vary between 3 and 4 at the back dependent on the opposition and player availability, and if Bolassie doen't come back as pacy as he was, RK will look for another pacy winger. There is still a chance this season for some players at Everton to seize the opportunity to establish themselves in Koemans thinking,but this season is their last chance..Lennon,Mirallas, Besic,McCarthy,will more than likely be gone next summer.

Koeman is a professional,efficient, tunnel visioned student of football, with a tendency to over intellectualise the whole caboogle, and as long as he remembers that football is really a simple game with a simple object, we will be OK.

 

[Khalekan]

.

Coleman would be the only one. Times have moved on, so should we.

Nowt wrong with Holgate.

 

[MikeH72]

Baines has still got it

He's a decent footballer, but unfortunately has a terrible defeatist mentality in big games which is a hangover from the Moyes era. As I said, until they're all gone from the club we won't win a game away against a top 6 team.

 

[MikeH72]

.



Nowt wrong with Holgate.

Didn't play a game in the Martinez era so can't really be classed as part of it.

 

[efcjames]

He's a decent footballer, but unfortunately has a terrible defeatist mentality in big games which is a hangover from the Moyes era. As I said, until they're all gone from the club we won't win a game away against a top 6 team.

Agree, need some big changes before we can get near challenging the top 6

 

[Khalekan]

Didn't play a game in the Martinez era so can't really be classed as part of it.

You're moving the goalposts, Mike

 

[bluestevon]

But that's not what the chart means.

It's almost important to note we have also played Stoke (awful, especially away from home with only 4 wins last season away), Split (awful, with a dreadful record against English sides) and the Slovakian lads (who in terms of quality of personnel will be the worst team we play all season). The only really anomalous result is the City draw (and even then, we manged it last season, we're supposed to have improved).

You can't really argue we've dominated any of those sides for 90 minutes, or played a definable way. Nothing backs it up. The 'raw' way of looking at it is we've won four games, drawn two, lost one. Those bits of information @hetion has linked are only anomalous if we dominate a strong away side next weekend (Spurs) and perform well away at a traditionally strong home side (United). Otherwise, it's a fair indicator of predicted form.

City away game last year, 3 shots we had 2 on target, Chelsea 1 shot 0 on target. stoke we had 21 9 on target but seem to remember we where shocking going forward that day and scored due to a missed pen luckily bouncing in off the back of Givens head.

City this season 7 shots 2 on target, Chelsea this season 7 shots 0 on target.

We've played 3 games we scored the same amount in these games last year, and actually had more efforts in 2 of the 3 games.

Have we improved over last season - too hard to say for sure atm, but using the results and performances so far and statistics to show we have been poorer is wrong.

Chelsea last season we where absolutely bummed in onje of the worst performances i have ever seen from us, this year we just got soundly beaten, City away this season, we probably where decent value for a draw, last year it was daylight robbery as we where hammered all game, stoke we where poor and somewhat fortunate ultimately to get a win in both seasons.

Will the Spurs and United results and performances change the perception a lot seem to have about us this year, probably not, we have basically a new team and are playing two teams we rarely get the better of in recent years

 

[gianthogweed]

All the good work in the summer getting players in was undone by not getting someone to score goals
seems very strange that Everton have a billionaire major share holder and it was not addressed
mediocre season unless Sandro proves to be a revelation

 

[COYBL25]

Loads of 1-0, 1-1's and 0-1's.

Plus Rooney collapsing at some point and needing CPR, from chasing balls that have been wellied up to him.

 

[toffee-L]

I've no idea how we're going to play and the early signs don't look good, even before the Chelsea debacle the only decent spell of our season up until the point was the first half against Split at Goodison.

I think our best team (at the moment excluding long term injuries) would look something like:

Pickford

Martina - Keane - Williams (i'd rather Holgate but doubt the manager would go for him) - Baines

Gana - Schneiderlin - Klaasen

Rooney - DCL - Sandro

Until this team plays together (or something similar to it) for a sustained run and we get our absentees like Coleman and Bolasie back into the team I think we will see an improvement in the football that we're playing.

 

[Barnfred 55]

I know a lot of this is (probably) in jest, but against Split we were playing it high and long to Lookman. Madness.

Thing is I'm genuinely not looking for this to be a slating Koeman or Walsh type thread (though others can if they choose). I've admitted that they both have a track record of implementing or supporting the implementation of a clear style of play - and not even the same approach.

Currently, I just can't see what we are trying to do or recall any successful parallels.

TBH mate I really can't understand why Walsh should have any influence on how the first team play. I would have thought that Koeman has 100% control over first team tactics and he would give Walsh instructions as to the type of player/skillset he wants and what positions he wants to fill, based on what he has now and what he feels is ready to come through from the youth set up.

It would then be up to Walsh to find the players to suit Koemans shopping list, and I'm pretty sure they'll sit down together to discuss the alternatives, with Koeman having the final say. I'm not sure Walsh's role is as high profile as some people think. In fact I'm not sure what his role actually is as I don't think the club has actually ever clearly defined this.

 

[Barnfred 55]

City away game last year, 3 shots we had 2 on target, Chelsea 1 shot 0 on target. stoke we had 21 9 on target but seem to remember we where shocking going forward that day and scored due to a missed pen luckily bouncing in off the back of Givens head.

City this season 7 shots 2 on target, Chelsea this season 7 shots 0 on target.

We've played 3 games we scored the same amount in these games last year, and actually had more efforts in 2 of the 3 games.

Have we improved over last season - too hard to say for sure atm, but using the results and performances so far and statistics to show we have been poorer is wrong.

Chelsea last season we where absolutely bummed in onje of the worst performances i have ever seen from us, this year we just got soundly beaten, City away this season, we probably where decent value for a draw, last year it was daylight robbery as we where hammered all game, stoke we where poor and somewhat fortunate ultimately to get a win in both seasons.

Will the Spurs and United results and performances change the perception a lot seem to have about us this year, probably not, we have basically a new team and are playing two teams we rarely get the better of in recent years

What you say is 100% correct mate. All I would add is that 2 of those 3 games last season were 2 of our worst performances of the whole season, and the 3rd was probably one of our worst home performances. In fairness, it would be difficult not to improve on them.

But as you say, it's still early days and plenty of time for the new team to gel together.

 

[Barnfred 55]

All the good work in the summer getting players in was undone by not getting someone to score goals
seems very strange that Everton have a billionaire major share holder and it was not addressed
mediocre season unless Sandro proves to be a revelation

In fairness we were never going to get one individual to replace Lukaku's goals. Most of us understood that. Sandro, Rooney, Gylfi and Klaassen are all capable of getting decent goal tallies, plus the new striker we were expecting to bring in would have got his fair share too. If it all clicked we probably wouldn't have missed Lukaku's goals.

The problem is we haven't brought in the striker we needed to gel our play together, and make the most of the other offensive players we brought in. Somebody who can get on the end of Gylfi's set pieces.We're now left hoping that a young 20 year old can fill that void, and that is a pretty poor situation.