In his debut article for The Football Front, Lizo Johnson explains why Everton could finish higher than Liverpool for the second season in a row.
As I write this Everton
sit 3rd in the premier league, and their great Merseyside
rivals Liverpool currently lie in 18th. Historically
Liverpool has always been the number one club on Merseyside. The most
successful club in English history. Everton have always lived in the
shadow of their close neighbours and rivals. They have always seen as
the underdogs in the derbies and never really given a chance. But
this year it could be different. I’ve seen Everton’s last two
games and both times I have been thoroughly impressed. Players
playing under David Moyes have always had high work rates and high
levels of self belief, but Everton’s team this year has something
else.
Goals.
During his 10 year
tenor as Everton boss his team have been famed for their 1-0 wins,
built on strong defences. Set pieces whipped in towards the aerial
assassin Tim Cahill were the order of the day. That’s not to say
Everton don’t still have that strong defence, with Hibbert Jagielka
Distin and Baines remaining constant for several years now, but these
days Everton step out onto the field every week without any thought
of a draw in mind.
We saw the beginnings
of it last season with the excellent signing of Nikica Jelavic. At
£5.5m he has turned out to be an absolute steal, smashing in 9 goals
in 10 games towards the back end of last season. They drew 4-4 at Old
Trafford, a truly spectacular and deserved score line. In previous
years Everton had gone to teams above them in the league in the hope
of a draw, sitting back and relying on counter attacks and set
pieces. Not in 2012, they went for it and played some fabulous
football, and came back from 4-2 down with 7 minutes to go to claim a
point.
Just last week we saw
evidence of Everton’s new found attacking prowess. In their last 2
games Everton have smashed in 5 goals from a variety of sources.
Against Newcastle the combination play was exceptional, especially
down the left between Pienaar and Baines, two players that know each
other’s games inside out. They cut through Newcastle at will and
were extremely unlucky to only collect a point having dominated the
game and had two goals unfairly ruled out. The early kickoff against
Swansea was seen to be a real test for Everton. Last season very few
teams went to the Liberty and took the points. Everton pressed high
got the early goal and took it from there. Swansea’s usually
dominant passing was nowhere to be seen with Everton even taking the
lion’s share of the possession statistics with 56%. When Mikel
Arteta left Everton it was a devastating blow. Many thought that
Everton’s midfield would struggle to recover. But like many teams
once the main man had left Everton just grew tighter as a group, and
their midfield were imperious on Saturday.
One thing Arteta
definitely never had in front of him was a clinical finisher. This
season Everton have that player. The aforementioned Nikica Jelavic is
there to tuck away the chances created by the likes of Pienaar and
Baines. Now, Leighton Baines. As much as he’s highly rated across
the country, I still feel that people do not fully understand the
ability of the man. For me, he is among the best left backs in the
world. The only reason he is not internationally respected is that he
is not at a club that gets enough coverage across the world. That is
not to say I think he needs to move, because he is so settled at
Everton, but he could walk into any team in the premier league bar
Chelsea. Its’ up to him. To illustrate prove my point, so far this
season he has been the most creative player in the premier league,
creating 24 chances this season and averaging a chance created every
18.75 minutes. He has created more chances for his side from left
back than players like Santi Cazorla (20) and David Silva (14) have
from much further up the field. This is why I feel that his
importance to Everton cannot be overstated.
To give a recent
example of the attacking capabilities of Pienaar and Baines, against
Newcastle they had the highest number of penalty area entries of
anyone in both sides (5 and 6 respectively). The two even combined
for the first goal, with Pienaar playing through Baines who fired
home. In the second half Everton had two goals wrongly disallowed,
with one player I have yet to mention instrumental in them both.
Marouane Fellaini. When Everton paid £16m him, many a head was
turned. Not only because he was a young, unproven player, but also
because up until that point Everton had always been very shrewd with
their transfer business. They only paid what they believed players to
be were worth. And there were very few people at the time who
believed he would be worth £16m. Four years later, and what then
seemed a strange signing has proved a master stroke. The big Belgian
has impressed everyone since the moment he stepped into Goodison. He
arrived. It’s another classic David Moyes player really. Hard
working and fully committed on the pitch, but off the pitch you never
hear a sniff of late nights on the town or training ground bust ups.
No. He keeps his head down and keeps working. Or at least he did
until last week. Fellaini apparently told a Belgian newspaper that he
was ready to leave Everton at the next opportunity. This broke the
code. David Moyes and Fellaini himself have been quick to quash the
exit rumours, but we will see how it develops. One thing’s for sure
though, if he continues this season in the same vein that he’s
started it in, this will be his best season yet.
Fellaini embodies David
Moyes’ Everton machine. Hard working, relatively unknown player
signed for what proved to be brilliant business. That is a sentence
that could be attributed to the vast majority of Everton’s signings
in the last 6 years. So I was surprised when I heard that Everton had
signed Kevin Mirallas, a player who has earned the nickname ‘the
Belgian Ronaldo’. It didn’t fit, he appeared to be a flashy
goal-scoring player who, with the nickname he has, I presumed would
rarely return from the oppositions half. I presumed wrong. Whilst his
goal-record is undoubtedly impressive, another thing I’ve noticed
about Mirallas is that he doesn’t forget his defensive duties. It’s
true that very occasionally you see him attempting a few moves for
the next YouTube compilation but that won’t concern David Moyes.
What is most important for Everton is that he seems right at home in
his new surroundings. Three games, three excellent performances and
the future look bright for him at Everton.
Everton’s
next three premier league games are at home to Southampton and away
to Wigan and QPR, and on current form you cannot see them dropping
many points in those. And after that it’s the big one, Liverpool.
Everton are no longer a side to be overlooked. They can and it looks
like they probably will beat their neighbours in that fixture. And I
think they will beat them again in the overall table come next May.
Yet despite all this, I still see two major hurdles for Everton.
Firstly, injuries. They have an outstanding first eleven but when you
look past that it gets less impressive. If Everton’s main men get
injured it could spell disaster. The likes of Baines Fellaini and
Jelavic simply must stay fit if Everton are to have a successful
season. The only other hurdle I can see for Everton is consistency,
something they’ve always had a problem with. But get some momentum
going, and ride some luck with injuries, then Everton can be as good
as they want to be. It’s a long season and a good start means
nothing if you cannot sustain it (I’m sure Wolves fans will testify
to this), but we will see.
This article was written by Lizo Johnson. You can follow on Twitter: @LizoJohnson
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