I agree with this, but personally I think the away defending is more down to how we play as the away team. We seem to be better defensively when we don’t have as much of the ball, because it means as a team we have more numbers in the defensive third. I honestly don’t think we are organised any better, we just have more people there, meaning less space for the opposition. Away from home when we gain possession we have power and pace to hit teams on the counter. We are excellent at this due to the players we have.
At home or in games when we enjoy more of the ball, we tend to play ourselves in to trouble. We don’t have as many people in our defensive third, as we move up with the ball we then tend to commit too many players forward and leave ourselves man for man at the back. Teams can then counter on us. It doesn’t mean they will always score directly from the counter but it does mean they can gain possession and quickly progress to more dangerous areas, or they will have time and space due to us not really pressing the ball as a team to pick out a good pass or cross. For a team with 2 players who are defensively minded in the midfield it’s crazy that we can look so open in games.
I said this in Martinez’ first season, for his system to work defensively, you would need players with an exceptional work-rate, mobility, and tactical discipline right throughout the midfield and full back areas. We just don’t have that in those positions, Barry doesn’t have the mobility to cover for the fullbacks when they push so high and McCarthy doesn’t have the tactical discipline. Besic offers a lot of those qualities to be fair, but Barkley is all but redundant when we don’t have the ball.
Lennon has all of those qualities to be fair and that’s why he appears to be so important to Everton. He almost does the work of two men. This was very evident on Saturday. I think it’s kind of counter-productive though, because we’re almost sacrificing a creative wide position for a wide player’s defensive work-rate. I think this is also why Everton seem to just die at the end of games, players would need to be super fit to do what’s being asked and quite frankly they’re not. Look at the Spurs side and how hard they work and how fit they look. Unfortunately now, it’s got to the point when once we concede near the end everyone (fans and players included) just seem to know that we’re going to concede more. They have no faith in the system or themselves to see it through.
I’ve argued before about game management, once we take the lead in games, if we just reigned the full backs in and restricted their runs, then it’d put far less pressure on the midfield, and we’d be able to crowd certain areas of the pitch like we can in away games. It wouldn’t be defensive like parking the bus, it’s just playing smart and restricting the space for the opposition, and with the players Everton have on the counter, we’d probably be more dangerous than we are when we’re passing the ball around in the final third.
