Match date: 10 January 2015

Everton came into the match in very poor form, with many questioning the footballing philosophy of Roberto Martinez and whether or not he should stick so close to his principles, something that many managers stray from in hard times and something that brought Everton relative success last year.

Manchester City have closed the gap on Chelsea. At the beginning of the match day, the two sides were tied at the top of the table on points, goals for, goals against, and goal difference.

Martinez continued with a 4-2-3-1, with Besic and Barry as the holding midfielders with Barkley and Naismith rotating in the central role behind Lukaku. John Stones came into the side at centre back alongside Phil Jagielka.

Pellegrini was still without Aguero and Dzeko, with the former fit enough for the bench. He set out Manchester City in a 4-2-3-¼-2-4.

Space in Midfield Redux

There were such similarities in this match compared to the last time these two sides met, just a little over a month ago. In that match, the amount of space in midfield was vast, allowing the midfielders to easily take advantage of it. On that day, Samuel Eto'o, who played in the central role behind Lukaku, and Samir Nasri, who had the freedom to move throughout the line behind Pozo, were the best players for their respective sides. Move ahead a month to this match and we find that the space in midfield was just as huge and the best players on the day thrived in those spaces.

The midfields of each team were slightly changed. Barry and Besic were still selected as the holding midfielders for Everton, but Barkley, more often than Naismith, played in front of them rather than Eto'o. For Manchester City there were more changes, however, with Fernandinho and David Silva in place of Yaya Toure and Nasri, with the Frenchman instead taking up a position on the left side of Manchester City’s attack.

For Everton, the space was found when both Fernandinho and Fernando would push high up the pitch to support the attack. Perhaps with the instruction to do so in the absence of Yaya Toure, Pellegrini asked the pair to try to contribute going forward and, with the way the midfield triangles were matched up, it gave one of Fernandinho and Fernando free movement going forward as Barkley could only theoretically mark one. However, at times both Brazilians would push forward and leave a huge amount of space behind them. Ideally, the Manchester City back line would be higher to help squeeze the pitch and allow the midfielders to push higher, but even with Mangala at the back, who offered pace to cover Demichelis, they were rather deep. Lukaku showed throughout the match that he had the beating of both centre backs, which pushed the line deeper, so with the line so deep, one of Fernando or Fernandinho should have held their deeper position a bit better.

The above is a good example of the space Everton found and it should be noted that this wasn’t a blistering counter attack that saw Manchester City get caught out. Rather, Everton were deep and Barry had a clearance/pass that Lukaku held up well at the halfway line and laid it off to Barkley who was then pressed by Fernandinho. Barkley dropped the ball to Naismith and at this crucial point, both Fernandinho and Fernando went to press the Scot. So the two Brazilians were behind the ball, in a comfortable position, but both tried to press and allowed the huge space that we see above for Everton to attack.

Naismith was the player that took the most advantage of this space for Everton. He pinched inside and gave Everton superior numbers in midfield and would drift to the far side to help create overloads. McGeady’s width on the right allowed for even more space to open up for Barkley and Naismith as, at times, Fernando would shift over to help support Clichy. Barkley and Naismith combined very well. Barkley looked to keep the ball moving while Naismith looked to play penetrative passes into Lukaku more often.

Silva’s Space and Jovetic

The space in midfield for Everton was pronounced, but it was not so for Manchester City. Everton’s midfield defended fairly well. Barry knows his role, he sits and tries to dictate things and Besic has excellent work rate which allowed him to track the likes of Fernando and Fernandinho well when they were getting forward. Instead, for Manchester City, it was Silva that found the space in a congested midfield.

Barry and Besic who were zonally marking meaning that the Spaniard’s constant movement disrupted the pair and he often found himself unmarked in a good amount of space as seen above. Even when the Spaniard was marked, his teammates trusted to play the ball into his feet and get it back or have Silva keep it moving. Jovetic’s movement significantly aided the space that Silva was able to find. The Montenegrin would move into the zone that Barry and Besic occupied which would allow Silva to move even more freely and, other times, Jovetic would occupy the centre backs which would allow Silva to get behind Barry and Besic, but remain unmarked.

Jovetic and Lukaku

The two strikers had mostly different days aside from the fact that neither scored for their side. Jovetic was extremely active during his time on the pitch. As mentioned above, his movement helped Silva find space in midfield, but he offered much more than that. He was a willing runner down the channels when Manchester City looked to play longer. He held the ball up relatively well and brought others into play. Last year, Brendan Rodgers noted that Suarez and Sturridge were ‘nine-and-a-halves’ and this is essentially what Jovetic was more his side on the day and he was a bit unlucky for be withdrawn, albeit for Agüero. He moved well into the space that Barry and Besic were operating in, which aided Silva and left Stones and Jagielka without a forward to mark, and he move beyond them and pulled them wide throughout. Silva and Nasri did well in moving beyond him when he did, but Yaya Toure’s dynamic runs forward, when he’s at his best, would have been something that would have aided Manchester City with Jovetic’s movement.

Lukaku, on the other hand, had a game of two halves. He was mostly anonymous in the first half and had to drop deep in search of the ball as Everton struggled to find him. In the second half, however, received the ball twice as much as he did in the first half and had some chances to test Hart. He started to pull wide right a bit more often and isolated himself against Mangala more often than in the first half. Along with this, Everton looked to play the ball a bit longer, which they hadn’t done as much in the first half despite the gap between Manchester City’s back line and midfield.

Conclusion

A draw was arguably a fair result. One thing that wasn’t noted above was how sloppy some of the passing was, particularly from Manchester City. There were so many times where moves broke down because of a very poor pass to the intended receiver. It was not as though Everton’s pressure was great, the passes were just very loose, sometimes three or four yards away from the open man.

Roberto Martinez and Everton will be hoping that this performance sees them put together a good run of form after struggling for the last few weeks while Manchester City will welcome back Agüero as they look to continue their title bid against Chelsea.