After the excitement and promise of the start of the Roberto Martinez regime at Everton, things took a turn for the worse last season. An abysmal, and frankly depressing, Premier League season was coupled with a decent European run that ended all too abruptly with a thrashing in Kiev.
Fans took the drastic – though increasingly and worryingly common – measure of flying a plane over St Mary’s last weekend in protest at the club’s board. The 3-0 win at the game would have provided some relief to the board in the wake of the protest, and indeed to the management staff who may have been starting to fear the worst.
In fact, there were plenty of reasons for Everton’s management staff to feel cheerful after the win over Southampton. Firstly, it was a good away win against a good side. The Saints took Everton’s place amongst the Premier League elite last season, qualifying for Europe impressively. And they’ll be hoping they don’t take Everton’s place this season as a club underachieving because of the weight of European competition on Thursday nights.
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Secondly, Everton played well, and more importantly, the defence played well. John Stones looked assured and wonderfully calm at the back – though that might not be considered a positive if he does find his way to Chelsea before the end of the month. The defence was the problem last season. The Toffees conceded 50 goals last season, but even worse was the defensive errors. What I called a ‘thrashing’ in Kiev was really a series of defensive lapses.
Everton looked shaky for the entirety of that night, and they looked shaky for most of the season. It wasn’t simply poor organisation and positioning, but there was also comedy errors too, defensive slips, poor passes and the like. When things are going badly, sometimes bad turns to worse very quickly indeed.
It was also important for Everton that Romelu Lukaku has started to score. He looked untamed and brutal at the weekend, a beast of a man with strength and speed, completely unstoppable. And around him, the likes of Arouna Kone and Ross Barkley were also on great form. Everton possess some very good players, and if they all start to play at their best at the same time then they’ll be the potent attacking force that we saw at the weekend more often than not.
It was a fine attacking performance on top of a fine defensive performance that reversed the scoreline of the last time the two teams met at St Mary’s when Southampton won 3-0.
But what’s interesting is that Everton played on the counter. With the pace and power of Lukaku, Kone and Barkley it makes sense to do that. But Roberto Martinez like his teams to play fluid football, complete with short passes and lots of possession.
At the weekend, Southampton had more possession and more shots that Everton did. At the end of last season, Everton started to pick up results, and a 3-0 win against Manchester United was the catalyst for a better end to the season. Again, Martinez employed a more counter-attacking approach and again they were beaten in the possession stats.
The foundations for the new Everton were laid at the end of a disappointing 2014-15 season, and they might be about the reap the rewards. With no European football to serve as a distraction and a sense that things can only get better after last season, Everton’s start to the season is encouraging. Martinez started his reign with a 2-2 draw against Norwich, and started this season with a 2-2 draw as well.
But it’s last week’s victory that will be the most encouraging part for the Spaniard. Everton have scored five goals in two games and the attack has been performing splendidly. Martinez’s team executed the plan to perfection and left the south coast with maximum points and a bucketful of confidence.
You get the feeling they can go from strength to strength if they play like that every week, and maybe the optimism of two seasons ago will quickly return to Goodison Park.
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