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.
