Early Season Assessment

Terriers, Wolves, Yard Dogs, Villains and Devils.  Football is back at Goodison Park and in force.  Four Premier League games and a Carling Cup tie into the new calendar and there's already a lot to chew on for Everton supporters.

It's safe to say that things haven't exactly gone to plan for the Blues so far, with frustrating draws, goalkeeping errors, and unlikely fightbacks already chalked up as the campaign is in it's infancy.  Having taken the first steps in the marathon rather gingerly against Blackburn and Wolves, the Toffee's have roared into life in the last couple of games and. but for a lack of luck, might have had more to show for their efforts.

It would be quite easy in the aftermath of the romantic script of the last match to gloss over a lot of the worrying trends that have started to emerge in our most recent fixtures.  Worrying trends which span both the team selection and team tactics. A lot of Everton's missed opportunities so far have been entirely of their own making and the buck must stop ultimately with the manager.

David Moyes has laboured to make things click with his team this season, hampering the marvelous squad he finally has entirely at his disposal with negative tactics, predictable and slack substitutions in matches, and poor team selection.  The pulse-racing comeback against Manchester United does not disguise the fact that this is not the start to the season of promise that Evertonians expected and demanded.  The signs were there for all to see on the opening day as curtains went up and little has been done since to rectify these problems. 

For starters, the manager is still in his die hard old habit of playing some of his favoured lieutenants rather than more exciting talents behind them.  Though a fine player and a great club servant, Leon Osman is neither a right midfielder nor of the quality required to merit a starting berth every game if we're looking to meet our lofty ambitions.

Many would also attack the selection of Tony Hibbert ahead of the more exciting Seamus Coleman but, if properly observed from a few steps back, Moyes is taking the right approach with the firey Irishman.  Not only is Coleman a rough diamond with as many flaws as strengths to his game at this point, Hibbert has excelled himself so far in the games he has played, likely in response to the challenge posed by Coleman.  Despite his criticisms, Moyes knows what he is doing when it comes to developing young players and will often resist the calls to throw his prodigies in at the deep end if he doesn't feel they can swim strongly enough yet.

One issue that cannot be excused though is the selection of Sylvain Distin ? often as baffling as it is frustrating.  The big Frenchman too is a decent player with distinct physical qualities but he is far from being a player on the level where the Blues want to be competing.  Distin continues to be selected while World Cup Finalist John Heitinga either warms the bench or is shoehorned into midfield.

Sylvain Distin can be an impassible mountain on his day but those days are rare... and while he displays a complete lack of common sense on the pitch, we have a much better option in our ranks.  On top of being a full-blooded crowd favourite, Heitinga is on a different level of composure altogether than Distin.  A proper footballing defender who has intelligence and vision to match his steel and guile.

The popular line of thinking is that, in selecting a Distin and Jagielka partnership at the heart of defence, David Moyes satisfies his need for balance and physicality in the back four.  I'd prefer, however, to have more faith in the Scot's talent as a coach and as a student of the game than to subscribe to that common belief.  Such tactical thinking is straight from the footballing dark ages and one cannot reach the level that David Moyes finds himself at with such a lack tactical nouce.  The actual reason for the reluctance to play Heitinga and Jagielka together remains to be seen but the lions share of supporters hope to see this overcome sooner rather than later.

Another self-inflicted wound Everton seem to be carrying at the minute is negative tactics for positive players.  While lesser lights like Wolves and Blackburn set themselves up to bully and harass Everton off their stride, our plan to combat this is often to indulge the opposition in a dogfight. Everton are at the point now in their development where they're seen as a major scalp for a lot of teams as well as an expansive footballing side ? not a compact and rugged team as they have been for a long time.

After perfecting the art of cutting more attractive teams down to size with muscle, the Blues now find themselves the victim of their own technique.  Few teams will try to outplay Everton this season and David Moyes must devise a way to overcome opposition who set out to choke the life out of games.  Playing one striker at home against a team like Wolves is not acceptable and Evertonians will not permit it.

Many are clamouring to play two orthadox strikers in games and, while there is some logic in that, I don't entirely back that cause.  The current formation is one that suits the players at the club and when effected properly, allows us to control games.

What does not work however is playing the system like a 10-man defence.  Playing Jermaine Beckford ? a traditional box striker with a love for running at defenders ? up front alone, with his back to goal, trying to hold the ball up against lesser teams is not how to win games.  By getting supporting players like Tim Cahill and Steven Pienaar in and around him and playing to his strengths by giving him balls between the defence and keeper to attack, we may yet see the best of our new striker.

Much has been said about the Aston Villa match but such a game happens at least once a season, where the result is a total freak and doesn't reflect the match so no more will be written about that here. Coming to more recent events, the match against Manchester United which should provide a springboard for the rest of our season. Overall the play from the team was encouraging and, barring a few of the aforementioned habits persisting, we lived up to a lot of the expectation we placed on ourselves in the pre-season.

Whilst the manner in which the point was secured was somewhat fortuitous, it was fully deserved. There were periods in the game when we bossed, making Man Utd look second rate but for some calamity defending, proving once again we take 10 minutes to warm up after half-time. And considering Osman's inability to finish from 10 yards, we may have actually won the game.

There is however no point crying over spilt milk and now must be where the club truly shift gears and takes off before everybody else is too far ahead in the race.  Yet, if we are to truly do that, then some early season lessons must be learned, and learned quickly... starting with better team selection and playing to our own strengths rather than making life hard on ourselves ? that would do for now.

Overall, our marks so far for the 2010-11 season? B for effort; D for application ?  improvement needed.

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