Match date: 5 October 2014

Everton finished above Manchester United last season, led by Roberto Martinez. Manchester United, however, spent a large amount of money bringing in the likes of Daley Blind, Marcos Rojo, Luke Shaw, Ander Herrera, Angel Di Maria, and Radamel Falcao and brought in Louis Van Gaal. While Everton spent about £28m on Romelu Lukaku, their spending was not nearly as high as Manchester United. Both teams are looking to get into next year’s Champions League, however, which means they need to pick up points from one another.

Van Gaal set his side out in a 4-4-2, with a midfield diamond and Juan Mata in for the suspended Wayne Rooney. Daley Blind played at the bottom of the diamond, with Di Maria and Valencia on either side.

For Everton, Martinez set his side out in a 4-2-3-1, with Besic and Barry in holding midfield positions, with Steven Naismith in front.

Midfield Battle

On paper, Manchester United had the advantage in midfield. With a midfield diamond, they had four centre midfielders against Everton’s three. This was especially true in the first half, as Manchester United saw a lot of the ball and Everton allowed them to have it rather than look to press with any great intensity. While Barry and Besic were outnumbered in their zone, with Di Maria, Valencia, and Mata, Naismith would either drop in to support or would move up alongside Lukaku to put pressure on the Manchester United centre backs, which allowed Daley Blind to have plenty of the ball in the first half and dictate the game for the home side. Below, you can see a good example of the amount of space that Blind got with Besic, Barry, and Naismith all dropping behind the ball.

Blind was able to pick out passes, particularly into the wide areas of the field. Above, he plays the ball between Pienaar and Naismith into Rafael’s feet, who crosses in the build up to Di Maria’s goal. Despite playing a midfield diamond, the movement of Di Maria and Valencia was interesting. Both McGeady and Pienaar would be slow coming back as Di Maria and Valencia would start narrow, but their movement took them out wide where they could then overload Everton’s outside backs. Many of Di Maria’s early touches, in particular, came in a wide left position as opposed to a central role and Besic was usually a bit slow to come out and close the Argentine down. Di Maria has played much of his career as a winger, but last year was an important part of Ancelotti’s 4-3-3 at Real Madrid and while he setup centrally there as well, a lot of his movement was into wide areas, so it was to be expected that he’d see the space wide and run into it. Below, you can see the amount of crosses and take-ons he had in the wide areas and half spaces.

Martinez’s Half Time Changes

As mentioned, Blind was able to find a good amount of freedom in the first half and so was Di Maria, with a lot of his freedom credit to Blind being able to pick out passes as he pleased. Roberto Martinez responded in the second half by clearly giving instruction to Naismith to stay close to Blind and try to deny him getting on the ball or put pressure on him quickly when he did receive the ball so that he was less expansive with his passing and it worked very well. Below, you can see how many passes Blind had in the first half compared to the second half, when Naismith put pressure on him.

With Naismith’s new role, it altered the Everton setup. They moved from a 4-2-3-1, where Besic was more in the same zone as Barry, although a more dynamic in his movement, to a 4-3-3 with Barry holding and Besic and Pienaar in front of him. The front three consisted of Lukaku, Naismith, and McGeady. The interesting decision, though, was that Lukaku, who shaded left to match up with McNair in the first half, was playing from the left, with Naismith as the centre forward. Martinez has used Lukaku on the right in previous games, but this was usually because he had a height advantage over the full back and so was a good outlet for Everton when they need to play in the air. However, this decision was mainly based on closing down Blind and Naismith offers a much higher defensive work rate than Lukaku. Below, you can see the Everton side in their 4-3-3 with Lukaku on the left. It was Naismith, in this central role, that got Everton their equaliser from a header at the back post.

This alteration helped stop Blind getting the ball, but the space that Di Maria and Valencia were able to get into in the wide areas needed to be addressed and Martinez made a more subtle adjustment here by allowing Besic, who had a good game, and now Pienaar to follow Di Maria and Valencia into those wide areas. McGeady was better at tracking back in the second half, but Lukaku stayed high, which was probably by design, to give Everton an outlet, but Pienaar, and then Oviedo, were forced to get dragged very wide to mark Valencia’s wide runs. At times it left Everton’s midfield three incredibly stretched, but Manchester United were mostly unable to exploit Barry’s isolation.

Everton Going Forward

With Manchester United playing with a midfield diamond, it meant that Everton could find space in the wide areas and could potentially have 2v1s against the Manchester United full backs. Baines got a good amount of the ball on the left side, he played the most passes in the attacking third for Everton, and got the assist for Naismith’s goal, but often Everton’s play was too slow and Manchester United were able to get numbers behind the ball and support in the wide areas before Everton were able to exploit them.

Lukaku and McGeady were both on the fringe of the game and if Pienaar hadn’t been hurt, Oviedo would have come on for McGeady. The biggest disappointment in Lukaku’s game was his inability to test Patrick McNair, Manchester United’s young centre back as he failed to get a shot on target.

Conclusion

Roberto Martinez and Louis Van Gaal put on a good tactical match up, although it is hard to say whether tactics won or loss the game rather than Manchester United’s more talented and creative individuals in the attack, notably Di Maria, who made another superb match for his new club.

Martinez responded well to his side’s weaknesses at half time, but considering how little of an influence that Lukaku had on the match, it was interesting that he opted not to bring on Samuel Eto'o to give his attack a different look after they went 2-0 down.

Everton’s currently sit just outside the relegation zone with just six points so far this season, but have already played Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United, who now sit in fourth.