By Daniel Butler

W ith just six league wins all season, Everton’s 2014/2015 Premier League season hasn’t exactly gone to plan. With ten games to go last season, they were on 51 points. But now they’re on 28 – a staggering and barely believable 23 point difference. With ten games of the campaign left they’re only six points off the relegation zone and an incredible 21 points behind Southampton in seventh.

As could be expected with such a dramatic decline in results, there’s a major statistical difference in their general performance on the pitch. The amount of goals they’re scoring has dropped from 1.61 per game to 1.18, whilst they’ve already conceded more goals this season than they did last year; rising from a rate of 1.03 per game to 1.46.

Though the performance drop may be exactly the same for the goals scored and conceded, it’s the offensive side of their game which will be the biggest concern to Roberto Martínez, a manager who seems to live and die by his attacking, possession-based philosophy.

It was something which brought them such success last season and it certainly can still do so. But Martinez seems to have become even more rigid within it as things have continually grown worse – possibly to an extent where, although admirable, it has become detrimental to their overall performance. So what’s gone wrong?

Everton’s possession lacks punch

Everton are still living up to Martinez’s beliefs in one respect, and Everton’s ability to maintain possession and pass the ball hasn’t changed. But actually converting that control into anything meaningful has become largely problematic.

Despite their average possession per game (55.5%) being the fifth highest in the division, it’s only being converted into 12.4 shots – the 11th highest in the league. That’s a significant disparity, but what’s even more of a concern for them is the location where those shots are actually coming from.

Of their shots, a rather huge 52% of them are being attempted from outside the box with Spurs being the only other side to surpass that unwanted proportion. That correspondingly means, of course, that Everton have had the second-lowest percentage of their shots from inside the box, which is clearly a much more favourable location in regards to distance.

But where Spurs can at least attribute their similar proportion to them being a high-pressing side that opportunistically shoot very early in or after transitions and can also justify it with their higher number of shots in total, Everton cannot.

For them, it’s a simply a case of being unable to break down the opposition with their high levels of ball control during games. Whilst no possession is ‘meaningless’, as some people like to call say, far too much of Everton’s is sterile and ineffective. That’s something which can easily be reflected in the fact that it takes them a huge 43.7 passes on average to muster a shot at goal, a figure which is topped only by Aston Villa, who are by far the league’s lowest goal-scoring side. So why is that?

Barry and McCarthy: A year older and a hamstring weaker

Well, a significant part of it appears to be down to the midfield pairing of Gareth Barry and James McCarthy, one which worked so successfully for them last season because of how well they complement each other.

The Irishman’s defensive contribution, energy, and ability to maintain the ball under pressure often meant that his partner would be allowed more time on the ball. This was of vital use to both Barry and Everton, with him being the key in transitioning play from back to front at pace with more vertical passes. Between them the ball always kept ticking and moved at pace.

With McCarthy experiencing a fairly regular hamstring problem, the midfielder has missed 10 Premier League games but also underperformed when he has been ‘back to fitness.’ So actually getting the pair out together in the first place has been an issue.

Barry is now getting less time in possession because of his partner’s absence, something which he could particularly do with now he’s a year older at 34 and on the wane too. It’s limiting his ability to progressively pass the ball in a way which is genuinely productive for Everton.

This can be demonstrated when comparing the number of key passes he’s averaged over the two seasons; with it dropping from 1.3 per game in 2013/14 to just 0.4 now – and though the number of overall passes he’s making has remained similar, they just aren’t as effective any longer.

McCarthy’s experienced the same pattern too, from 1.2 per game to 0.6, and it’s really affected the team as a unit. The slower speed of distribution isn’t allowing Everton to play with the fluidity which was so important for them last season.

That’s then had a knock-on effect to the rest of the team as the midfielder has failed to get the best out of a set of attacking players who thrive with space and the ability to be more direct.

Passes are being played into the feet of very vertical players like Ross Barkley, Kevin Mirallas and Romelu Lukaku when they’re already being marked. Contrast this to last year when passes were played ahead of them – allowing the trio to run into the gaps and better exploit the space left by defenders.

It’s not a problem which they’ve experienced as much in the Europa League (a competition which they’ve been doing extremely well in despite their league performances) due to the extra space that they’re getting – possibly because the teams Everton have faced are similarly used to taking the initiative themselves in their domestic leagues.

Goodison Park: The Island of Misfit Toys

As a result there have been clamours from fans and pundits (and even the players, according to some comments from Lukaku) for them to switch to a more direct style. But despite the evident decline in their passing game from a progressive perspective, Martínez has been as firm as ever with his philosophy.

It’s hardly a surprise, especially given his time at Wigan. Though how they’re playing at the moment with a lower tempo certainly isn’t bringing the best out of the set of players he has at his disposal.

Lukaku is possibly the best example of that. A player with incredible physique and pace, as well as what is frankly a rather awful first-touch. It makes sense to get him running at or in behind defenders; not attempting (and often failing) to hold up the ball with his back to goal. But by the time the ball is getting to him, the former isn’t an option regularly enough.

It can be reflected in his goal tally too, which has dropped from 15 in 31 appearances (29 starts) to just seven in 28 appearances (25 starts) so far this season in the league. Part of that is related to his shot-to-goal conversion rate too, which sits at a dreadful 8.6% compared to a reasonably solid 15.3% in 2013/14. But the slower tempo of play and lack of space to attack has noticeably affected his performances.

Baines, Coleman and the need for more crosses

Something that’s similarly representative of their lack of directness can be seen in the type of service provided by their wide players, particularly Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman. The two full-backs truly flourished under Martínez last season with an enormous degree of attacking freedom. But despite having these two bombing up the line and a striker of Lukaku’s build in the middle, they’ve rather strangely attempted the Premier League’s third-lowest number of crosses per game (17.8).

It should be granted that the pair (particularly Baines) often underlap instead of overlap. And so crossing may not be a suitable option from a number of the positions they venture into. However, their lack of service into the box – even though crossing is the most inconsistent method of scoring from open play – is a nice and accurate representation of Everton’s reluctance to ‘mix things up’.

High defensive line, where art thou?

The attacking style of their full-backs links smoothly into the faults of their defensive system this season. With there often being a load of space left behind them on both sides, Everton are especially vulnerable in transitions and place a huge reliance on being able to slow the play down in order to regain at least some resemblance of a solid shape after giving the ball away.

In other words, that means pressing – something which has drastically declined in their play this season. Not closing down with a high line (which is needed for them to play their possession game and provide a higher starting position for their full-backs) is almost suicidal. And so it’s no wonder that they’re conceding so many more goals without it.

Whilst looking at defensive statistics can be somewhat misleading, at least without proper contextualisation, there’s a very worrying pattern behind Everton’s; especially for a side who are set up in a manner which requires pressing to make it sustainable.

For the number of tackles, interceptions and fouls committed per game, Everton are 18th, 19th and 20th in the league respectively. Unsurprisingly, if you add up the numbers involved to make a total of the ‘defensive actions’, they make the lowest in the division with 38.8.

By dividing the number of defensive actions they average per game (38.8) by the number of shots they concede on average per game (13.5), you get a result of 2.87 – a number which equates to the amount of defensive actions they make per shot that they allow.

Only West Ham and Sunderland have a lower figure for that, making for pretty horrific reading for Martínez’s side. In Tim Howard, they also have a goalkeeper who’s massively underperformed (in the first half of the season in particular) after an excellent World Cup during the summer, and so to give away so many opportunities to test him is bound to end in trouble.

As well as showing how easily they’re cut open without much pressing, that’s also indicative of the risks they take when playing out from the back. A decent number of those efforts against them are a result of their high number of individual errors: something which similarly happened at Wigan when the Spaniard was there.

Considering how quickly the players adapted to Martínez’s system last season this is particularly strange, but it appears the squad’s rhythm has been seriously affected. The declining speed of ball circulation isn’t enough to break teams down, whilst the composure to maintain possession under pressure seems to have similarly disappeared.

A fter such an excellent first season in charge, Martínez deserves the chance to be the one to turn it around – he’s already proved he can get the best from this set of players.

He also deserves the criticism he’s receiving and it would be foolish to suggest otherwise. But there’s no chance the Spaniard is going to move away from his philosophy, no matter what is said to him.

He shouldn’t consider overhauling it either, but he does need to learn from the criticism coming his way and recognise the tweaks which need to be made. Do that, and Everton will be just fine. Martínez is a part of the problem now, but there’s more than enough proof from last season and their European performances that, assuming he shows a greater willingness to adapt and make those adjustments again, he’s also the solution too.

What do you make Everton’s struggles? How long will Martinez have to right the ship? Let us know on Twitter:

Daniel is a new contributor to Just Football with a focus on the tactical aspect of the game. You can find his work at The Tactics Room or you can follow him on Twitter @TheTacticsRoom.