Deulofeu wants cup to cover up cracks

Here’s a game you can play at home. Select a Merseyside team and imagine how many from Liverpool would get in. Philippe Coutinho, certainly, Roberto Firmino, probably, and Jordan Henderson possibly – but there would be few other candidates. Given the pressures swirling around Tim Howard and Simon Mignolet, Tranmere would have to provide the goalkeeper.

Roberto Martinez has assembled a beautifully balanced, highly talented squad at Everton, filled with some exceptional young talent. In this season of radical upheaval, they might be where Tottenham find themselves.

Instead they are 12th in the Premier League, which is why tonight’s Capital One Cup semi-final matters so very much. Wembley, in the short term at least, would solve a lot of problems and they will take a 2-1 lead from the first leg to Manchester City.

“The players are so excited about such a big game,” says Gerard Deulofeu, who would assuredly make that Merseyside team. “I want to go to Wembley and win the final but we have a very difficult game at Manchester City first. We have to win because in the Premier League it has not been good.”

“Fearful” is how Martinez described Everton’s display on Sunday, when they lost at home to Swansea for the first time in their history. In games against Stoke City, Chelsea and Bournemouth, they scored nine goals and collected two points, conceding in stoppage time in each of those fixtures.

There is nothing so frustrating for a forward as scoring goals and not winning. Brian Clough, who played for an exciting, if similarly fragile, Middlesbrough side, once asked his defenders how many he would have to score for Boro to get a win. Clough had just struck a hat-trick in a 6-6 draw at Charlton.

When Romelu Lukaku’s header gave Everton the edge over City in the first leg at Goodison Park, it was the 12th goal he had scored in a dozen matches and Everton won only four of those games.

Deulofeu is not afraid to compare himself to Cristiano Ronaldo and would like to play more through the middle

“Romelu needs more goals and he needs to go to the first [near] post more,” says Deulofeu, whom Lukaku calls “my provider”. “I always say, ‘Rom, go to the first post my friend, because my crosses are dangerous’. Against Swansea, for example, we needed him at the first post.

“I think we can win every game because we have an amazing team but in some parts of the game we need to take responsibility and concentrate more.

“It is in the head. We need to show more passion. We played so well against Manchester City and Chelsea, and I don’t know why we couldn’t do it in the other games.”

Those on the Gwladys Road End who imagine Martinez’s fate could be decided this evening might ask if Everton would have secured someone of Deulofeu’s ability without him. He graduated from the Barcelona academy at La Masia with predictions from his contemporary, Rafinha, that he would win the Ballon d’Or and a £30m buyout clause in his contract.

Martinez secured him for less than a fifth of that amount, although Barcelona have the option to buy him back in the next two summer transfer windows. Everton are confident that unless Deulofeu is guaranteed first-team football at the Nou Camp, any return to Catalonia will be rejected.

He does, however, know the answer to the question most Manchester City footballers will want answered: “What is Pep Guardiola like?”

“He is different because he understands football differently to other coaches,” says Deulofeu. “This year at Bayern Munich he played with three defenders and seven attackers in one game. The tactical way of Pep is the most incredible I have ever seen.

“When he was at Barcelona, that was their best team, I think. When they lost the ball, the pressure they put on their opponents, the positioning of their players, was amazing. Of course, we needed players like Iniesta and Messi but the coach is so important.

“When Pep was at Barcelona, I was so young, 16 or 17 years old. I went to training a lot and Pep Guardiola told me a lot of things but I didn’t stay in the first team. He is an amazing coach and, if he comes to the Premier League, I think he will win a lot of titles.”

Winger has four goals and 11 assists for the Toffees this season (GETTY IMAGES)

Deulofeu’s name means “God made him” in Catalan and was traditionally given to children who were orphans or did not know their parents. Deulofeu, who grew up near the medieval walled city of Girona, is close to his family, who will come to Wembley should Everton reach the final. However, when he runs at defences there is a sense that his football comes from a higher, heavenly plane. Like Cristiano Ronaldo, he is a winger who sees himself as a centre-forward.

“We are similar in little things but we are different in a lot of others,” says Deulofeu. “Cristiano has a lot to his game – he is good in the air, his shooting is perfect, his left foot perfect and he is more of a striker than a winger now, a No 9.

“I am a winger but in future I want to play more in the middle. When you are there, you have a lot more chances to score. I would like to do it like Cristiano, start wide and then go in as a No 10 or 9. For Barcelona B I played No 9 and I think I played well.”

There are some at Everton who will tell you Deulofeu is an “all or nothing footballer”, who is either anonymous or dazzling. When he spent last season on loan at Seville, their manager, Unai Emery, thought him superb in a one-on-one situation while adding: “He does not have the maturity or capacity for self-sacrifice.” Emery thought he had less able but hungrier footballers and the loan soured.

“I played some minutes but from February to June there was nothing,” he said of his time at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan. “I didn’t have the confidence of the coach but here at Everton I do and I am able to show on the pitch that I am more of the player that I was able to show last year. I think I am playing my best football in three years.”

He says he is comfortable and settled on Merseyside, living with his partner, Mari, and their two dogs, a Chihuahua and a Bichon Maltese.

“The most important thing is I am enjoying my football with my team,” he says. “It is not possible to enjoy all of it because we are not winning games in the Premier League but we need to give the fans one win in the cup because the fans in England are different from those in other places.”

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Gerard in numbers

2013 - Joined from Barcelona on loan in 2013 before £4.2m switch last July

11 - Assists provided in all competitions this season (as well as four goals)