CRIMHEAD
Player Valuation: £40m
Correct. He also is contributing plenty defensively.
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What a load of rubbish.
TheBigIguana
Player Valuation: £100m
Which part?
CRIMHEAD
Player Valuation: £40m
None of course. He stepped up his defensive contributions in the Fulham and Leeds matches, and is producing the same number of chances.
Deulofeumygod
Player Valuation: £35m
Our poor finishing is hurting the team and that has been an issue for ten years.
We don’t convert our chances.
Dcl does. No one else does.
We don’t convert our chances.
Dcl does. No one else does.
Dario Terracotta
Player Valuation: £70m
Correct, Leighton Baines stats would have been obscene had he been playing for a regular top four team.
TimHowardsBeardJuice
Player Valuation: £35m
More responsibility on James to set up the attack and less help for him with Digne out.
ElGato
Player Valuation: £10m
Most stats websites - rank for 'big chances' created (xG>0.4) is:
1. KDB
2. Kane
3. Bruno Fernandes
4. Grealish
5. Jameth
SpongeBob brown shoes
Player Valuation: £40m
This is something that's really annoying this season, although we're bad at the back the chances we create but miss could be putting us out of site but atleast we are creating, if we wasn't then I'd be very worried
James Rodriguez wasted no time at all in making an impression on the Premier League.
The Colombian was superlative in his opening five league games, registering three goals and three assists and helping Everton to a haul of 13 points in the process.
Only a couple of months on, though, and the picture — at least in terms of headline numbers — looks markedly different. Everton have won once in seven, while James’ last goal or assist came in October’s Merseyside derby.
In some circles, the way Rodriguez is being discussed has already changed. In two months, he has gone from star signing to someone who, in the words of Talksport pundit Gabby Agbonlahor, “is getting a bit found out”.
“He isn’t really offering the team as much as he should be,” the former Aston Villa forward said. “If Everton had a few more quality players on the bench, then I’m sure James wouldn’t be starting. He started very well, but he’s gone a bit quiet now. He throws his arms in the air if someone doesn’t pass to him and his work rate is non-existent.”
Justifiable criticism or hot take?
The Athletic assessed Rodriguez’s opening 11 games at Everton to see if his impact really is starting to dwindle.
Everton’s game with Burnley appears to be ambling towards the tamest of conclusions when Rodriguez picks up the ball just outside the area. He lifts his head and spots the onrushing Gylfi Sigurdsson, finding the Icelander with a flick of the outside of his left boot. It is a piece of vision that no other player on the pitch would, in reality, be likely to replicate. A Rodriguez moment.
Sigurdsson shoots, the goal gaping and three points up for grabs, but his effort lacks precision and is saved by the outstretched foot of Nick Pope. The game finishes 1-1.
A week earlier and Everton are locked in a scrap with Leeds United. In the first half, Rodriguez takes a Richarlison cross out of the sky close to the touchline, opens his body with majestic skill and fires high into the net. The goal is disallowed, Rodriguez offside by a hair’s breadth, but he is undeterred and continues to threaten. Before the half is over, Mason Holgate draws a smart save from a Rodriguez free kick and Richarlison bundles home another disallowed goal from the Colombian’s corner. Everton lose the match 1-0.
Against Leeds and Burnley, Rodriguez did not register a goal or assist — more ammunition for those that paint him as a fading force. But that does not mean his contribution has been negligible.
Operating largely in a free role from the right, Rodriguez has quickly become a key player. Whether playing in a 4-3-3 or more recently in a 3-4-3, the 29-year-old has been given the freedom to drift inside and create. Rodriguez has not been a typical wide man since joining. His 3.1 take-ons per 90 minutes, for example, fall way below average for the position. But he is not in the side to hug the touchline and beat opponents.
“His position is a No 10, in front, but it doesn’t matter if he plays a little bit on the right,” Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti explained recently. “All the games that he played, he played in front. It doesn’t matter if he’s in the middle of the pitch or a little bit on the right of the pitch.”
Rodriguez’s remit is to get Everton up the pitch with his passing, providing the kind of chances Sigurdsson and Holgate received against Burnley and Leeds. “His football is not so complicated because when he has space we try to use his quality in passes,” noted Ancelotti earlier this season of Rodriguez’s importance to Everton when in possession. “When he doesn’t have space, we have to play simple.”
There was a notable dip in output against Southampton and Manchester United — he recorded just 0.07 expected assists (xA), which measures the likelihood that a pass will become a goal, at St Mary’s and nothing against the latter — which could in part be put down to a hematoma complaint and two poor team performances, but Rodriguez has reverted to type lately.
Compared to other wingers and wide attackers in the Premier League since the start of last season, he has the second-best xA total (0.34 per 90 minutes). Using the advanced metrics on Smarterscout, we can see his creativity is among the best in the Premier League. Smarterscout is a site that gives detailed analytics on players all over the world, producing a score between 0-99. His expected goals (xG) from shot creation, which measures his contributions per minute in possession to his team’s goalscoring chances, is elite, rated 90/99 by Smarterscout.
The total of three goals and four assists in 11 games is impressive, but it could have been better.
The message from the Burnley and Leeds games was that ultimately, as a creator, you can only ever be as good as the player on the end of your pass.
Rodriguez is constantly looking to play the ball forwards when he can and often does so effectively. He is sixth in his position league-wide for passes into the final third in open play (6.5 per 90 minutes) and averages six long balls per 90 minutes. His quick switches of play have been particularly useful in springing Richarlison.
So often, the summer signing has come to deliver the “pass before the pass”. The balls to Lucas Digne in the build-up to Everton’s second and third goals against Fulham are just two examples of his productivity in this aspect of play.
Everton have been increasingly careless in possession of late and Rodriguez will be vital to their attempts to improve in that area. As the above chart shows, he is adept at maintaining possession in tight spaces, registering a ball retention ability of 84/99 — a rating calculated by understanding how often a player keeps possession across different areas of the pitch compared to his peers.
What sets James apart is that he likes to float outside of the area but rarely make his way into it. He is averaging just 1.9 touches in the opposition box per 90 minutes, ranking him 52nd out of 54 players in the sample since the start of last season. Instead of making his way into the box to latch onto crosses, he instead prefers to probe and set up others. Most of his shots come from range.
One of the biggest question marks so far has surrounded Rodriguez’s work rate. Up to now, he has been afforded minimal responsibility defensively, with Ancelotti tasking his midfielders with covering the space he vacates on the right.
Some pundits, such as Agbonlahor, have seen this as an indication that he is not willing to get his hands dirty. Yet as the Smarterscout graphic shows, he disrupts opposition moves at an average rate, and does more than his fair share of picking up loose balls and interceptions.
So often a force for good in possession, the Colombian should not be castigated for something Ancelotti has delegated to other players. If there is a flaw in the system, the buck must ultimately stop with the manager.
Equally, if the ex-Real Madrid man continues in the same vein, the likelihood is that he will soon end his barren spell without an assist.
With problems in defence, injury problems on the flanks and holes appearing in midfield, Rodriguez should probably be the least of Ancelotti’s worries.
(Top photo: Oli Scarff – Pool/Getty Images)
the golden visionary
Player Valuation: £35m
This james nonsense is typical everton da mentality.
Its the same people who phone radio merseyside and cry about ancellotti not being good enough.
Clearly what we need is someone who gets stuck in
Its the same people who phone radio merseyside and cry about ancellotti not being good enough.
Clearly what we need is someone who gets stuck in
Toffeelover
Player Valuation: £80m
This flaming lot, pathetic that is what they are.
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