Everton have had a good start to the season and this campaign was always going to be one in which it would be tough for progress to match ambition. David Moyes does have a few options to provide fresh impetus over the coming weeks, though, writes Blues correspondent Joe Thomas
Joe Thomas is the Everton FC correspondent for the Liverpool ECHO. He follows the Blues home and away, providing match reports, analysis and insight into events at Goodison Park, Finch Farm and beyond. Joe spent more than a decade covering news on Merseyside, working on award-winning investigations and extensively covering matters related to the Hillsborough tragedy - including the recent criminal prosecutions. Always grateful for tips and feedback, he can be contacted at joe.thomas@reachplc.com and on Twitter via @joe_thomas18
A dejected Carlos Alcaraz during the Premier League match between Everton and Tottenham Hotspur at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images
A dejected Carlos Alcaraz during the Premier League match between Everton and Tottenham Hotspur at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images
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Now might be the time for David Moyes to make some changes.
We can all see this side has made progress since last season. There is more confidence, more intelligence and more guile than we have seen for some time. Not only is there a desire to have the ball much further up the pitch, there is the ability to use it, too.
But as nice as that is to see after the gruelling survival football of recent years, it is tough to watch Everton right now and conclude there is no room for improvement. Not all the answers lie in the squad - and that is fine, the summer could only ever have been stage one of a transformation that will have to continue over several years to deliver sustained progress. Some might though, and it may now be time to explore them.
I did not think the performance against Tottenham Hotspur was particularly bad. Everton created good chances and were denied because most of the big moments, where the difference between success and failure was fine, went against them. Jake O’Brien’s goal was rightly disallowed but on another day Micky van de Ven’s second could have been ruled out for a push on Jordan Pickford, Everton may have been given a penalty for Mohammed Kudus’ challenge on Idrissa Gueye, or Guglielmo Vicario does not make three excellent saves. Only one of those factors needed to fall in Everton’s favour to create the potential for a very different night.
What Everton need to try and do is everything in their power to load the big moments in their favour - to leave themselves less reliant on needing to find a more clinical edge or for decisions to go their way to win games.
Moyes has built a decent team and he clearly believes the starting line-up against Spurs is his best available. It is that group that has been the bedrock of the season and, while the table looks less healthy than at various points so far, Everton have picked up good results and have been close to grabbing better ones than they ultimately managed.
We now have enough evidence to start making informed judgements on the group Moyes is placing faith in and their limitations are becoming increasingly clear though.
One of the biggest issues for the season has been Everton’s difficulty defending in transition. It feels like they have an attack that wants to play on the edge of the opposition box and a defence that needs to play on the edge of its own - creating the gaps in between that the likes of Liverpool and West Ham United have exploited.
There has been notable misfortune because the obvious solution to that was the return of Jarrad Branthwaite, whose stature and pace would have allowed Everton’s defence to push higher up the pitch. That option has now gone because of his setback.
Given the extent of the issue, one option could be to move O’Brien into his natural position to explore whether he could allow the team to do what it was hoped Branthwaite would enable them to do - the Republic of Ireland international is no slouch.
Doing so would provide Moyes with the opportunity to reassess his full-back situation. It is the fault of neither O’Brien nor Vitalii Mykolenko that they are not particularly effective in the final third, their games are not built around that. But it is limiting the effectiveness of Everton’s attack with defences doubling up on Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye because they know there is no overlapping threat.
This may be a chance to see whether Seamus Coleman could offer an option against some teams on the right, or maybe even Merlin Rohl or James Garner. Neither would be a perfect solution but they could be worth looking at.
On the left, it is peculiar how keen Everton appear to be for Mykolenko to push up. There were times against Spurs when he was playing on their last line of defence. Not only is that not a natural part of his game, it is detrimental to his strength, which is defending. Playing to his strengths might help him become more effective and make that left side more solid, while providing the freedom for another player to step up the pitch. When the Blues are chasing the game, as against Spurs and Manchester City, and can be more ambitious at full-back, that could be the time to look at Adam Aznou. He may be young and Moyes may have reservations but the questions over his ability appear to centre on his defensive capabilities. There appeared nothing to lose by giving Aznou a chance in the closing stages of the most recent games. At the very worst, he picks up useful experience. If not Aznou, Dwight McNeil would offer his wand of a left foot as an alternative option.
Further up the pitch, it looks a bit crowded on the edge of the box, particularly given Grealish and Ndiaye tend to cut inside and don’t have an overlapping full-back to draw away defenders and create space. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has been a great addition to this squad but I think this might be the time to consider moving him into a deeper position. Perhaps Everton might benefit from him knitting together play from the middle third, providing control on the ball and drawing defences further up the pitch - thus creating more space for Ndiaye, Beto and Grealish to target behind the full-backs.
Should Moyes prefer to play with a central attacking midfielder, I like the idea of Grealish moving inside and Ndiaye to the left. It would make the Blues less predictable, place Ndiaye in his favoured position and open up a slot for Tyler Dibling on the right.
Everton now have options - to kick on, it might be time to use them. The availability of Merlin Rohl is a boost in midfield and if you dropped Dewsbury-Hall back then that pair, James Garner, Idrissa Gueye and Tim Iroegbunam could provide a strong central midfield core that can manage different phases of each game.
Moyes has a squad, he has options, so it would be good to see him using them more creatively. I have not yet mentioned Carlos Alcaraz, who I think is a good option for the Dewsbury-Hall role or for a deeper lying position. He was so effective at the end of last season and deserves more time that he has received so far.
None of this is to say Everton have the perfect solution to each of their issues. They do not. Some of the ideas above may sound preposterous to people with more agile footballing brains than me. That is fine.
It is also fine that Everton will frustrate this season. Real progress will take time and Moyes has only had one full transfer window in which he, really, was left with far too much to address. The temptation is to look at the success this season of the likes of Bournemouth, Brighton, Crystal Palace and Sunderland and question why Everton are not doing the same.
With the exception of Sunderland, whose early season success deserves real credit, those clubs are benefiting from longer periods of stability on and off the pitch, and squad building that has been layered with several years of recruitment that has all pointed in the same direction. Everton are at the start of that journey. Even with Sunday, I think perspective is key. According to Transfermarkt, Spurs’ net spend over the past five years is £651.98m. Everton’s over the same period, is £13.87m.
That does not mean Everton should not have expectations of genuine progress this season but it does highlight just how far back they are playing catch up from. As above, now might be a good time to explore some new ideas with this squad though.