Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Hill Dickinson Stadium after Everton's 4-1 defeat to Newcastle United
The only positive for Everton is that we’ve got a game coming up very quickly. We haven’t had a good record down there and Newcastle showed power and speed which are our kryptonite, it’s what we’re lacking.
Bournemouth have got players who like to run with the ball with pace and power, and we need to find solutions to stop getting counter-attacked so easily. Then it’s Nottingham Forest and Sean Dyche will know exactly what our weaknesses are.
Both of these team coming up this week have got strengths where we’ve got weaknesses. We need to find a solution.
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We’ve got a poor record down at Bournemouth, but we also had a poor record at Old Trafford, so hopefully we can overturn that. We’ve got difficult games coming up and we need all the squad to stand up and be counted.
Bournemouth were two nil up on Sunderland and probably could have got a third, but ended up losing, so we know there is fragility there. We’ve had some really crazy games down at Bournemouth and for one reason or another, we’ve struggled to get positive results.
You can understand against big teams away from home how we’ve had a poor record but Bournemouth seem to have had one over us. So, this is an opportunity for David Moyes and this group of players to put this right.
The Everton fans are going to be travelling down for this game which is being played midweek – which in itself is baffling – but they’ll be there like they are week in, week out, and will want to see a performance and a reaction from what happened against Newcastle.
We’re expected goals and assists from our attacking midfield trio. When they get into a bit of form and match rhythm, they’re always going to be a threat.
Eddie Howe got it right tactically because he overloaded the wide areas which have been our strength through Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye. It wasn’t just about marking them tight and stopping the options, they had two or three players around them to prevent the through-balls.
They knew they could overload those wide areas as we had no midfield runners to exploit the space in the middle. The only time we did that was when we scored.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall made a fantastic run, it was a half decent ball in from James Tarkowski, but what an unbelievable touch and goal. I didn’t think it was so good at first, I thought it took a deflection off a defender, but watching it back on the replay, that type of goal deserved to be a winner, it was Dennis Bergkamp-esque, how he brought the ball down from behind and to keep your eye on the ball is one of the difficult skills of football.
To have the composure to put it away was unbelievable. But then you’re thinking, where was that run in the first half?
I feel we’re still very shot shy. I saw Phil Foden’s last-minute winner for Manchester City against Leeds United and it looked like he was about to shoot against a brick wall, but he’s popping the question.
We’ve conceded three goals from deflections off Tarkowski this year, he’s in the way. Just have a go, something might happen, like Foden who found the back of the net.