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Are we a one man team?

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If you can try and put aside for one moment some of his silly arguments and underlying anti Koeman agenda, Dave does actually have a point here. We are overly reliant on Lukaku's goals, and it is something that we need to address going forward.

For the moment however, RK needs to play the cards he has been dealt. The simple fact is that we don't have any depth of quality in our attacking options. We have an absolutely top class striker in Rom, and a potentially world class playmaker in Ross, who is finally finding some consistency. Apart from that we have a small number of average premier league standard players and some young potential in DCL and Lookman.

RK has realised that to get the best out of the team this year he has no option but to concentrate on playing to the strengths of our top class striker. The dangers of this are that we lose that striker (either to injury of transferred out) and that the opposition will know how to defend against us. However, Rom is that good that the latter is not so easy to achieve.

Hopefully we will still be able to keep hold of Lukaku during the summer. Even if we do, it is absolutely imperative that we bring in a good quality second striker and a quality goal scoring attacking midfielder/playmaker, if we are serious about mounting a challenge on the top 4 next season. The latter HAS to be a set piece specialist too. Our corners and set pieces are, on the whole, dreadful.

So yes, we are too reliant on Lukaku this season, but the focus next year should be to bring in people to add to his goal tally, not to share in it.
 
davek said:
An accusation against this side (and it is a cause for concern as far as I'm concerned) is that we rely too heavily on one player - a player on the verge of leaving if a massive change of heart isn't found between now and the summer transfer window.

I, and others, take the view that the barb "Lukaku + luggage" is dangerously near the truth. Many others take the view that we aren't as reliant on him as we think (and it's fair to say the Liverpool Echo in all its idiocy has been trying over the last fortnight to run insanely down a road that portrays him as not the be all and end all of Koeman's Everton team...who can forget the bizarre 'Everton and CL football without Lukaku's goals" numb-nuts piece last week?!)

But what are the facts?

Below I set out the measure of 'one man team' as far as an attacker is concerned by measuring the only two factors worth a good God damn: goals and assist. The findings are shocking, and they firmly underline the extent to which we are imbalanced as a football team and ill-equipped to progress without Lukaku.

Using the top 7 teams who have a small points gap on West Brom, and who are a cut above the rest of the PL at the moment, here are the stats for star players and their value to their teams.

Goals / assists as a % of key involvement in total number of PL goals scored by club - 2016/17.

Lukaku
21 / 6
53%

Ibrahimovic
15 / 4
48%

Sanchez
18 / 9
44%

Kane
18 / 4
41%

Costa
17 / 5
39%

Mane
12 / 5
28%

Aguero
12 / 0
23%


...and the same metric applied to the next best performers at each of the top 7 clubs:

Alli
13 / 3
30%

Eriksen
5 / 10
28%

Hazard
11 / 4
25%

De Bruyne
4 / 9
25%

Pedro
7 / 7
24%

Lallana
7 /7
23%

Firminho
9 / 4
22%

Barkley
4 / 7
21%

Ozil
5 / 4
16%



From that we can appreciate just how much of an overbalance there is in our team in terms of overall impact spread across it.

Two related observations jump out:

1/ Obviously Lukaku's colossal input into the season has us where we are right now.
2/ The greater depth of significant contribution from 'secondary' players at our rivals is startling.


I dont know whether it's the way we are set up to play in terms of committing less bodies to attack this season, or whether outside of Lukaku are players just aren't confident enough to get up the field and score on a regular basis or a combination of both, but something is very much out of whack in terms of balance, and with the summer looming it is a feature of this team that needs sorting out asap because it is no basis whatsoever for progress.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

No
 
Barnfred 55 said:
If you can try and put aside for one moment some of his silly arguments and underlying anti Koeman agenda, Dave does actually have a point here. We are overly reliant on Lukaku's goals, and it is something that we need to address going forward.

For the moment however, RK needs to play the cards he has been dealt. The simple fact is that we don't have any depth of quality in our attacking options. We have an absolutely top class striker in Rom, and a potentially world class playmaker in Ross, who is finally finding some consistency. Apart from that we have a small number of average premier league standard players and some young potential in DCL and Lookman.

RK has realised that to get the best out of the team this year he has no option but to concentrate on playing to the strengths of our top class striker. The dangers of this are that we lose that striker (either to injury of transferred out) and that the opposition will know how to defend against us. However, Rom is that good that the latter is not so easy to achieve.

Hopefully we will still be able to keep hold of Lukaku during the summer. Even if we do, it is absolutely imperative that we bring in a good quality second striker and a quality goal scoring attacking midfielder/playmaker, if we are serious about mounting a challenge on the top 4 next season. The latter HAS to be a set piece specialist too. Our corners and set pieces are, on the whole, dreadful.

So yes, we are too reliant on Lukaku this season, but the focus next year should be to bring in people to add to his goal tally, not to share in it.
Click to expand...

Think the point people are making here is we don't need a thread starting to know our lone striker is the source/creator of most of our goals.

I might start a thread reminding everyone we have a blue home kit.
 
I suspect its deliberate, I also suspect that if we didn't have Rom as our centre piece up front, the next guy would also be the main deliverer of goal based happiness. some managers prefer to shoot from all over from different players in roughly equal measure, some people want their goal scorers taking the majority of the shots from good positions and scoring with them... That would be us.

It's not like our other players don't score after all, it's just that we seem to be geared towards our most prolific striker striking, because that's the setup that we have, get the ball to Rom in a good position rack up the points.
 

Barnfred 55 said:
If you can try and put aside for one moment some of his silly arguments and underlying anti Koeman agenda, Dave does actually have a point here. We are overly reliant on Lukaku's goals, and it is something that we need to address going forward.

For the moment however, RK needs to play the cards he has been dealt. The simple fact is that we don't have any depth of quality in our attacking options. We have an absolutely top class striker in Rom, and a potentially world class playmaker in Ross, who is finally finding some consistency. Apart from that we have a small number of average premier league standard players and some young potential in DCL and Lookman.

RK has realised that to get the best out of the team this year he has no option but to concentrate on playing to the strengths of our top class striker. The dangers of this are that we lose that striker (either to injury of transferred out) and that the opposition will know how to defend against us. However, Rom is that good that the latter is not so easy to achieve.

Hopefully we will still be able to keep hold of Lukaku during the summer. Even if we do, it is absolutely imperative that we bring in a good quality second striker and a quality goal scoring attacking midfielder/playmaker, if we are serious about mounting a challenge on the top 4 next season. The latter HAS to be a set piece specialist too. Our corners and set pieces are, on the whole, dreadful.

So yes, we are too reliant on Lukaku this season, but the focus next year should be to bring in people to add to his goal tally, not to share in it.
Click to expand...
I think you should be fairly reliant on your striker to score goals, with others chipping in to both distract from the striker and pick up the points we wouldn't get when the striker has an off day.
 
Nymzee said:
Think the point people are making here is we don't need a thread starting to know our lone striker is the source/creator of most of our goals.

I might start a thread reminding everyone we have a blue home kit.
Click to expand...
It'll make a change from the top 6 and next 5 games threads;)

Seriously though, whilst your point is valid, the longer term issue of the source of our goals remains. It's brilliant to have a striker that most of the rest of the premier is envious of, but every silver lining has a cloud. if we are to be realistic about challenging top 4 next year we HAVE to add to Rom's goals, more so than we are at the moment.
 
I too think that Davek has made a good point and one that is obvious, at least to me.

EFC's attack is basically Rom.. and er.. that's it.

Rom never gets injured..he still plays for long periods on his jack and gets little support (v. Spurs away). Miralles is average and would not get a spot in the Top 6 teams. In fact EFC's attack is its weakest link and now that Del
has gone there is no one who can really do something out of the ordinary. In recent games Barkley has shown some spark but I'd say Coleman has been our second best attacker this season.
 
Ihaters said:
I think you should be fairly reliant on your striker to score goals, with others chipping in to both distract from the striker and pick up the points we wouldn't get when the striker has an off day.
Click to expand...
Of course you should. that's his job and is the same in any team. There isn't any football club anywhere in the world that wouldn't want their star striker to top the goal scoring charts. Or any fan for that matter. Well, perhaps one:p

But that doesn't mean that putting all your eggs in one basket doesn't have it's pitfalls. What if your star striker gets injured. What if he leaves. At the moment, we're not in a position to deal with that because our squad isn't strong enough, and that is the message in my post. We need to strengthen in the summer and ADD to Rom's goals if we're to challenge for top 4.
 

Everton 3 - Saints 0
Baines (81')
Lukaku (89')
Valencia (73')

Everton 4 - City 0
Mirallas (47')
Lukaku (34')
Davies (79')
Lookman (94')

Everton 6 - Bournemouth 3
Barkley (94')
McCarthy (23')
Lukaku (1', 29', 83', 84')

Everton 2 - Sunderland 0
Lukaku (80')
Gueye (40')

Everton 3 - WBA - 0
Mirallas (39')
Lukaku (82')
Schneiderlin (45')

Everton 4 - Hull 0
Lukaku (91', 94')
Valencia (78')
Calvert-Lewin (9')

Thats a goalscorer doing what a goalscorer should do, and score.

12 Goals scored from other players in 6 games, i'd say thats spreading them around. Average of 2 goals per game from other sources than Lukaku.
 
Foot Long Hot Dog said:
Hilarious that we've got a thread bemoaning the fact that we've currently got the PL's top scorer in our side.

All dem goals is worrying yanno.
Click to expand...
I don't think anybody is bemoaning it though mate, apart from Dave. I want Rom to finish top scorer this year, even though I know it will mean it's going to be harder for us to keep him if he does.

What some people are saying though is that Rom's goals are, to a certain extent, hiding the truth that our squad depth from an attacking perspective is quite thin. As a team we set up to service Rom. I don't have any problem with that as it is the best use of the playing assets we have available to us. But that needs to change if we are to challenge top 4, and the only way to do that is to bring better attacking players in to complement Rom and add to his goals. Do you not agree?
 
Barnfred 55 said:
I don't think anybody is bemoaning it though mate, apart from Dave. I want Rom to finish top scorer this year, even though I know it will mean it's going to be harder for us to keep him if he does.

What some people are saying though is that Rom's goals are, to a certain extent, hiding the truth that our squad depth from an attacking perspective is quite thin. As a team we set up to service Rom. I don't have any problem with that as it is the best use of the playing assets we have available to us. But that needs to change if we are to challenge top 4, and the only way to do that is to bring better attacking players in to complement Rom and add to his goals. Do you not agree?
Click to expand...
While Rom is here it's a completely moot point though, as we're just doing what is sensible and playing to his strengths.

As and when he leaves the manager and DoF will have to conjure a solution, until that day arrives I'm just happy that he's lashing them in and we're burying sides with consummate ease at home.
 
Make of this what you like.

Take all Roms goals out of the equation
Currently we are
W14 D8 L7

Take his goals out
W12 D7 L10

would still be 7th and 7 points worse off.
 

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