Everton’s week that was | Leicester Massacre, Lindstrøm Evaluation and the Transfer Window
Kevin Dyer
12 – 15 minutes
Goodison Park Reawakened
What a few weeks it’s been since David Moyes returned to take the reins at Everton. It’s hard to imagine that the team would have been capable of winning three on the bounce, or charging into 3-0 halftime leads in both of the last two games at Goodison Park. Cynics may point to the quality of the opposition defences in both of those outings, and it’s true that Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City were hardly impregnable, but did the Blues look like scoring against anybody this season? Before the Scot returned, Everton had found the back of the net in only two of their last ten league matches, which is a genuinely shameful statistic.
I’d called the Foxes’ defence Championship standard beforehand and so they proved on the day. After working hard to open up the stubborn visitors, the Blues found themselves taking the lead… um, no that didn’t happen. Somehow, the hosts scored after ten seconds, through Abdoulaye Doucouré’s buccaneering run, courtesy of the traditional long diagonal from Jordan Pickford, which opens virtually every game played anywhere. A staggeringly incompetent start by the Foxes. If their gameplan was to be resolute and hard to beat, then it was undone immediately. Forced to chase the game, a combination of a high defensive line, with a non-existent press from an ageing front three – led by 38-year-old Jamie Vardy – was a recipe for disaster.
Everton exposed the visitors with ruthless efficiency. Leicester were harried throughout, demoralised and thoroughly beaten long before the third goal found the back of their net in added time at the end of the first period. This is how the Goodison crowd expects their team to play — with aggression and purpose. It’s been a long time since the team went out and stamped their authority on games like this, in consecutive home fixtures; far too long. Any concerns that the team would be affected by the loss of injured pair Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Orel Mangala were quickly dispelled by the performances of replacements —James Garner and Beto.
Garner was exceptional and did well to last 82 minutes in what was his first start since getting injured in October. He added the creativity which has often been lacking from the midfield, providing three key passes, including a perfect defence-splitting through-ball for Beto’s second goal. The 23-year-old was also robust in the challenge, winning all five of his duels. The Portuguese, now an international for Guinea-Bissau, terrorized the Foxes with his pace, strength and direct running off the back of the opposition defence. He proved a genuine handful when used correctly — which is not as a back-to-goal target man. Whether future opponents will be as obliging as Leicester is unknown, but for the time being the team has a more than useful front man.
Everton FC v Leicester City FC – Premier League
Magic man Ndiaye torments another visiting defence
Photo by MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Iliman Ndiaye continues his stellar form. The Senegalese has scored in each of the last three games, and has doubled his tally for the season since Moyes arrived. No longer deployed as additional defensive cover on the left, the maverick has been so much more effective recently, with the new boss clearly understanding how to get the best from him. He completed all four dribble attempts, turning the Leicester defence inside out in scoring his goal, but is also tenacious, with a low centre of gravity, enabling him to win nine of 12 ground duels. What a player he is. Jake O’Brien was again excellent in Everton’s hybrid back three/four system. Both are proving to be shrewd summer recruits.
Looking Under the Hood
It was disappointing to see Jesper Lindstrøm’s effort in the 73rd minute saved by Foxes goalkeeper and fellow Dane Mads Hermansen. The winger was distraught as the wait for his first goal in the Royal Blue shirt continued; understandable considering his last goal was for Eintracht Frankfurt, back in the 2022/23 season. At Everton, Lindstrøm has been shooting from too far out as he seeks to both end his goal drought, and to make a positive impression at the club — 21.0 yards on average, compared to 17.1 and 18.3 at the Bundesliga side, where he scored 12 league goals in 56 appearances. It’s hard to imagine he’ll get a much better chance than this — eleven yards from goal.
As an attacking player, the on-loan Napoli man will ultimately be judged on goal contributions, as he seeks to convince the Toffees to make his move permanent in the summer. Under Sean Dyche, he was in and out of the team, with an overemphasis on providing defensive cover, but he’s getting an opportunity to state his case since Moyes arrived, having started the last three games under the Scot. Lindstrøm’s work ethic has not been in doubt, and obviously he had played well enough in Germany to convince the then Italian champions to stump up €30m for him 18 months ago, but is he showing enough for Everton to pay Napoli a €22m fee by the end of the campaign?
Let’s take a look at some of the players’ underlying statistics.
First off, the negatives are easy to spot: a lack of any goals or assists, and a poor dribble success rate (20.6%). The latter is probably a feature of the wide position he’s being tasked to play, but he’s going to have to either improve in this area, or reduce the number of attempts to take his man on. For players with more than peripheral minutes (500+), he actually ranks third in the team for xG per 90 minutes (0.21), behind only DCL and Beto — and ahead of Ndiaye. He’s taking a greater number of efforts and hitting the target more often than anyone except the Portuguese striker (2.68 per 90), so needs to work on shot placement and composure. Both of those areas can be improved in training.
Lindstrøm is second amongst Toffees players in completed crosses into the penalty area per 90 (0.62), trailing Dwight McNeil (0.79). He’s behind only the currently-injured winger in both key passes (1.65) and balls played into the opposition area (1.03) per 90, also. Playing as a wide man, he’s attempting more than double the number of crosses per game as during his time at Frankfurt. In terms of SCA (Shot-Creating Actions), his metric of 3.93 per 90 again is second only to McNeil. The Dane leads the team in touches in the final third per 90 (24.2), illustrating his involvement in build-up play. He’s fractionally behind DCL in progressive passes received (5.88) and Ndiaye in progressive carries (2.47) per 90, showing his value in transitional play.
Everton FC v Leicester City FC – Premier League
Lindstrøm is denied a first Everton goal by Hermansen’s outstretched foot
Photo by Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images
Off the ball, Lindstrøm is an active defender — only Idrissa Gueye attempts and wins more tackles per 90 (3.3 and 1.86 respectively). He leads Everton in tackles attempts on dribbling opponents (4.54 per 90), though his success rate (34.1%) is what might be expected from an attacking player. The 24-year-old registers more combined tackles and interceptions per 90 (4.33) than anyone except Gueye; only the veteran midfielder blocks more passes than him (0.93 per 90). The appetite he shows out of possession, combined with his speed in closing down opponents, makes him a valuable contributor towards team defence.
So, the on-loan attacker is making a difference in attack, defence and in transition. Under Moyes, the defensive application and work rate he demonstrates will not slacken off, but he’ll be able to show a lot more of the attacking side of his game, than we saw with Dyche. He’s done it before at a high level, in Germany and given a run of starts in a system that isn’t so restrictive, I feel sure he’ll produce in England — as I did when he was initially signed by Everton. That first goal, or even assist, will make a massive difference and by the end of the campaign, the €22m optional fee required to make Lindstrøm a permanent signing may start to look like a bargain.
Alcaraz, Armstrong and the Window
There was a fair bit of consternation as the final day of the winter Transfer Window ticked down, with little in the way of reliable connections to additional signings, beyond the much-delayed loan deal for Carlos Alcaraz. Many fans, myself included, felt that the squad was light even before the losses due to injury of Calvert-Lewin and Mangala — the former for at least another month or so and the latter for the rest of the campaign, so to add just the Argentine midfielder seemed to be taking a risk, given Everton still have 15 league games left to play and, though in much improved shape in the table, aren’t completely home and dry.
To a degree, three wins on the bounce for the Toffees, whilst relegation rivals have failed to put any kind of positive form together, lessened the need to make any potentially rash signings, given the scale of the squad rebuild which the club will have to undertake in the summer. The Blues sit nine points clear of the closest side in the relegation zone, and enjoy a huge goal difference advantage. With Everton’s allotment of loan places used up, a necessity to preserve funds for the summer window and the difficulty in acquiring desired targets midway through the campaign, would it have been wise to go after short-term fixes at this point?
Sure, it’s always possible to snag a genuine bargain, but most players who have been made available by their clubs at this stage of the season have either been performing poorly, not been playing much – if at all – or are otherwise out of favour. The chances of any of them having been on Everton’s list of targets prior to the window opening are remote. Consider Willian: an impressive player in the past, possessing a wealth of experience, who had played solidly last season at Fulham, but flopped at Olympiacos, leading to a mutually-agreed exit with the Greek club in December. Would picking up a 36-year-old free agent winger, probably on significant wages, really be a progressive move?
Not for me. The Blues are finally about to break out of the PSR stranglehold which has threatened – at least – its top-flight status in recent years. The summer offers the rare opportunity of a complete reboot for the club; clear thinking in terms of recruitment strategy is imperative and can’t be compromised by remote fears that Everton could be threatened by Leicester, or Ipswich Town, teams who’ve combined for just two wins and 14 losses across their last eighteen matches. Even Wolverhampton Wanderers, who trail the Toffees by seven points, and are a much better side than any of the promoted teams, have only picked up three points from their last five outings.
The signing of Alcaraz is a positive one, fitting the pattern of Everton’s recent recruitment under director of football Kevin Thelwell: a younger talent, whose recent moves hadn’t paid off. The Argentinian who only turned 22 in November, broke through at Racing Club, in his homeland as a teenager, earning a move to the Premier League two years ago, where he caught the eye for a struggling Southampton side, scoring four goals in 18 league appearances (13 starts). Alcaraz found himself unsuited to new Saints boss Russell Martin’s hyper-possession style in the Championship, being loaned to Juventus, where he was a bit-part player and then sold to Flamengo last summer.
At the Brazilian club, he played in a variety of positions, but found it difficult to nail one down in a team again playing ball-control football. He’s an undoubted talent, who’s been at three different clubs over the past 18 months, at a time where stability would aid his development. Hopefully, he can find that under Moyes and the club could well end up with a real gem of a player. With Alcaraz arriving, academy prospect Harrison Armstrong headed off to Derby County on loan. Having just turned 18 and having had a taste of senior football at Everton, the talented midfielder can earn valuable minutes in the Championship. This will benefit the youngster a lot more than just hanging around Finch Frim
