Everton need to try and capitalise on Manchester City’s crisis of confidence on Boxing Day as Pep Guardiola has never experienced anything like this at the Etihad Stadium. It’s a huge game, we all know they’re having problems and teams are getting results against them by having a go.
Can I see Everton having a go at Manchester City? Probably not, but we’re going to have our moments so we need to keep our dedication and concentration that we’ve shown over the last couple of matches.
Their captain Kyle Walker is having a very poor season, he’s having a really difficult time. He’s getting targeted as a weak link when he’s isolated and punished by a lot of teams. Our most dangerous player, Iliman Ndiaye, is on that side, so can he cause issues for them and force Walker back? We also need to get free kicks in those wide areas that are dangerous.
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A goal can change momentum and the atmosphere in their crowd who are already nervous. A lot of times this season, City have started on fire but then all of a sudden, they’re wide open, a goal down, and teams are holding on.
They’re missing the best player in the world, Rodri, who won the Ballon d’Or, which shows that even teams as talented as theirs can struggle to reach their levels without key individuals. They’ve been unbelievable for the previous four seasons but whether it’s injuries or burn out, we can’t feel sorry for them and we have to go there and try and get something out of the game.
It will be difficult, but others have done so this season, so why not us? We need to have the belief when we get in certain areas, unlike our decision-making that let us down the last time we were there, losing the ball and 10 seconds later, Erling Haaland put it in our net.
Before Chelsea, we’d got the news we were all hoping for, and a bit of positivity with the takeover finally being completed, so the feel-good factor was back around the club. We hoped that the players and Sean Dyche could respond to that.
We knew it was going to be a difficult game against Chelsea, they have spent a lot of money and there is plenty of talent in their team. In many ways, Arsenal was the perfect warm-up for this fixture, but we hoped we could create a bit more and not just sit back.
I was really impressed with how the shape was. For me, it epitomised the mantra of how Dyche wants to play football and either team could have nicked it.
It showed where we have come from since the start of the season, or even the start of this month, when teams were opening us up all too easily. Over these last few games, we have seen from the players a dedication to keep their shape throughout the whole 90 minutes through communication and that was great to see.
Yes, we’d like to see us play on the front foot a few more times but we did have little moments where we started making it a bit nastier and the crowd were up. I thought if we score here, I can’t see Chelsea getting back into it, and I was confident we could keep them out.
We let Chelsea off the hook a bit with our set-pieces but that might be down to personnel with Dwight McNeil missing, or perhaps even the conditions. A couple of corners were under-hit and a couple of wide free kicks where Jack Harrison twice decided to square the ball to Idrissa Gueye, and I was thinking: ‘These are our moments to pop the question’.
Ndiaye had a chance and so did Harrison. He could have hit it first time or squared it as he had three or four options over what he could do with it, but he seemed to take the wrong one and was let down by a poor touch.
Everton turn a corner with players returning to form
It feels like Everton have turned a corner in this difficult December period. We were all fearing the worst over what might happen, but we’ve had a few positive results through decent performances with the likes of James Tarkowski, Jordan Pickford and Vitalii Mykolenko, who had all been underperforming to a certain degree, getting back to their best.
The midfield also looks more stable. We’re not getting broken into as much and they’re getting back into shape.
It’s okay playing this style against Arsenal, Chelsea, and possibly Manchester City next up, but the question mark for Dyche is the players comes when we play teams who are in and around us. Can we play on the front foot and do we have a passage of play to cut through them?
It’s up to Dyche to instil that confidence in the players. Can they make the right pass and implement the correct decision in key moments?
Pickford was on form again, but Mykolenko seems to raise his game when he’s playing against a real tricky winger who provides top opposition. He’s done it a couple of times against Mohamed Salah, against Bukayo Saka in our previous game and now against Chelsea.
Yes, we like to see the full-backs get up the pitch a bit more and help the winger, like Ndiaye in front of him. However, Mykolenko seems to think that he knows what he’s got to do and stop the opposition winger.
We need to create more opportunities for our strikers though as Dominic Calvert-Lewin didn’t have a shot on target. There’s a lot more work for Dyche still to do, but I was pleased with the point and when it got a bit nasty, Chelsea weren’t up for the fight, and if we’d have bullied them a bit more, their heads could have gone down.