Ronald Koeman kicked off his Everton tenure at home to Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham side who were massively impressive last year, and whilst the score represents an even fixture, Koeman’s side began brilliantly and showed signs of the Dutchman’s influence early on.

Koeman opted with a 3 man defence with James McCarthy being pushed out to the right wing-back position and also chose Gerard Deulofeu up front in a fluid trio involving Kevin Mirallas and Ross Barkley.

Pochettino continued with his 4-2-3-1 system and featured debutant Victor Wanyama partnering Eric Dier in the deep midfield area with the usual names lining up elsewhere.

Everton’s Superb Defensive Organization

Prior to kick off it was an assumption that Koeman had opted for a 4-3-3 formation with the players he named, but instead played a trump card by using a 3 man defence. Out of possession, Everton were clearly organized and proved a sterling opponent to thwart Tottenham’s attacking capabilities and positioned themselves in a 5-4-1 formation, which would look to congest the central areas to prevent Spurs’ build-up play through these areas. With Lamela operating out on the right, and Eriksen operating out left, Koeman had done his homework and knew they would play much more narrow, allowing their full-backs to push on.

In initial defensive transitions, the front 3 of Everton would look to apply pressure immediately if their was a slight chance of winning the ball back, but if there wasn’t this window of opportunity they set-up well in a triangular shape to prevent build-up through central areas. Particularly in the opening 10-15 minutes, Mirallas was concentrated on Dier, whilst Barkley looked to keep a hold of Wanyama – if either of the deep Spurs midfielders had an inch of space or indeed receive the ball they were closed down very quickly and prevented from playing forwards if they had received.

As the game grew on, Everton’s forwards pressing became a lot more aggressive, and looked to put the back line under a lot more pressure in Spurs’ own third which allowed the midfield and defending units push further forward to minimize the playing area Spurs had. This was particularly effective as Spurs didn’t have many players running in behind the Toffee’s defence, and would continue with their short passing play.

One Spurs had passed the initial first line of defence, they succumbed to a compact midfield unit of Gueye and Barry, and then usually 10 yards behind another compact unit of the 5-man defence.

Gueye was astute in preventing play through centrally when Spurs’ advanced, and Barkley and Mirallas pressed well in the initial defensive transition. McCarthy and Baines tucked in narrow and ensured that the back 5 would play very close knit and prevent any split passes through their defenders.

Their positioning as a defensive unit was superb – they were constantly and a comfortable defensive line which enabled them to prevent Spurs from making progress centrally, but also not much room to play the ball behind the defence. This forced Spurs to deviate from playing in the central areas and push the ball wider.

With Everton operating with wing-backs, this also proved successful when Spurs did play wide. McCarthy would often double up with Gueye when the ball was with Walker, often preventing Walker from using his pace behind the full-back. This forced him to play centrally again, playing into Everton’s hands or play backwards to his centre-half.

This was pivotal during the first half, and really limited Spurs effectiveness on the game. Alli and Eriksen were particularly quiet and ineffective in possession, whilst Lamela and Eriksen (the two wide players in the 4-2-3-1) avoided making runs in between Everton’s centre-half and wing-back where there was more space to exploit.

Koeman’s initial defending ideas came to fruition in the first half and this put Everton in the drivers seat. They looked thoroughly comfortable out-of-possession, and when regaining the ball they looked fairly dangerous on the ball – however, key signs of training ground work was evident in the opening 45.

Tottenham’s Poor & Slow Passing System

Pochettino has done fantastically well with this side, and has developed an aesthetically pleasing playing style which excelled last season. However today, this style of play was very slow, very predictable and ultimately very poor. The lack of urgency to play passes into players in advanced positions was hugely noticeable and was a major downfall to their poor first half.

Last season, Dier especially, proved that he was capable of making stern, crisp vertical passes into players in central congested zones, allowing them to play forwards on their first move, but today this sort of connectivity was disjointed and poor. In fact, they really struggled to move the ball well in all areas, and sorely missed Moussa Dembele in the middle of the park – a player who can carry the ball under pressure and make decisive passes between opposition players.

Initially, they failed to play quick passes into Dier or Wanyama when Everton’s first line had gone to press the defence, and opted to play through the full-backs.

Minute 7 was a great example of this – Wanyama has lots of space and time in the middle and is already on the half-turn to play forwards – Lloris instead decides to play a lofted ball into Rose who is immediately under pressure from McCarthy. Wanyama may not be terrific in the build up play, but personally, this potential pass may have reaped better rewards, especially with Walker in space and the front 3 of Everton would have been removed from the game.

As mentioned previously, they missed Dembele and it was evident – they didn’t have that player who dropped slightly deeper between opposition 1st and 2nd defending lines and able to link play from defending areas into attacking zones. In fairness, Everton had defended these central areas well, but there was still plenty of moments in the game when Alli, Lamela, or even better Eriksen, could’ve dropped slightly deeper in order to receive on the half-term and progress the play.

Ultimately this pushed Spurs into using wide players more often and attempt to build up through Rose and Walker carrying the ball into opposition areas. Whilst this had a minor effect on the game, they way Everton were structured so well made it difficult to move the ball quickly enough through a carrier resulting in play being forced back towards Lloris.

Another problem was with the poor urgency and intent when switching the ball – this could’ve been an effective tool – momentarily Walker and Rose would be in 1v1 situations against opposing full-backs. However, instead of a direct switch through a long pass method, they tried to do so with short ground passes.

Whilst this could’ve also worked, the aggressiveness of such passes were awful, and weight of pass was slow – allowing Everton to organize and shuffle units effectively to prevent the 1v1 situations.

This, however, was something with Spurs would later become much better at in the second half, and allowed them to get a better hold on the game and prove a lot more dangerous in Everton’s half.

Pochettino’s Key Substitution

Pochettino gave Vincent Janssen his competitive debut in Spurs colours, and was a genius move by the Argentine manager. The 3 Everton centre-halves had dealt well with Kane’s presence, and Gueye and Barry had done well to nullify central exposure so in return Everton were comfortable with the potential threat that was posed by the front 4.

With Janssen introduced for Dier, leaving Wanyama as the lone deep midfielder (and Spurs now showing a sort of 2-3-3-2 shape in possession) it caused further problems for Everton’s defence.

They now had to deal with 2 strikers, 3 supporting attacking midfielders and 2 wide wing-backs when out of possession. With Janssen and Kane looking to occupy the 3 Everton defenders, this brought Holgate, Funes Mori and Jagielka a lot more horizontally compact, whilst Eriksen and Lamela drifted in the centre-half — wing-back gaps, this allowed Walker and Rose to have a larger influence in attacking areas.

With Spurs’ equalizer coming through a cross from Walker, have much more players to deal with in the attacking line, it proved too much for Everton to cope with. On the flip side, Spurs did look more vulnerable on the counter attack, but with Koeman introducing Kone for Deulofeu, this risk was significantly reduced.

Conclusion

Koeman’s 3-4-3 system was thoroughly effective, moreso in the 1st 45 minutes. The spacing’s of individuals in their particular units was impressive – the ball possessor had plenty of options to play and usually had great runs from Mirallas and Deulofeu to pin point. Out of possession, they looked very solid, compact and difficult to break down from Spurs’ point of view, and in transitions they had a clear plan to press quickly and early if possible, and when this wasn’t on they set-up shape quickly and effectively.

Pochettino’s side showed little threat to Koeman’s side, but grew better as the game went on. They stuck to their philosophy which the Argentine manager has implemented, but ultimately should have had much more urgency in their passing, especially looking to work on their vertical and diagonal passing as well as penetrative final third balls.

Early days for Koeman and his Toffee’s side, but these early signs shows potential quality in the coming months and seasons.

@ainsfutbol

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