Sunday 10 September 2017

Too much dwell time

Everton's form is worrying. They were widely thought to have had a good summer transfer window, acquiring Michael Keane, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Wayne Rooney though losing Romelu Lukaku. The hoped for replacement centre forward didn't arrive and, while Dominic Calvert-Lewin's performances have been encouraging (and it's good to see one of England's U20 World Cup winners actually getting a game) Lukaku was a guaranteed Premier League goalscorer and his contribution will be hard to replace.

Yes, their two defeats have been to good sides, Chelsea and Tottenham. But they were insipid in both games and probably should have lost by much more than an aggregate score of 0-5.

Watching Stoke hold Manchester United 2-2 on MoTD I was left wondering why Steve Walsh hadn't considered Eric Choupo-Moting, who they signed from Schalke in August. He was a handful for Jones and Bailly, who had been thought to perhaps be the answer for United in central defence, took his two goals well and his post match interview revealed the Cameroonian international has very good spoken English. He was born in Germany mind, of a German mother and Cameroonian father and played for Germany up to U21 level. He isn't young - 28 already - and his scoring record isn't stellar: a couple of goals for Hamburg in 30 odd games early in his career, 20 from 74 games for Mainz between 2011 and 2014 and 18 from 82 games in 3 years at Schalke, while scoring 13 from 45 full international matches. We'll see if he keeps it up in the Premier League.

Part of my concern about Everton is the tempo of their play. It seems to have gone back to the slow-slow/slow-slow-slow possession football of the Martinez era at its worst (not sure what dance that is, but it ain't a cha cha). I understand why teams feel they have to get into a game and establish control by keeping hold of the ball. But if you play in front of the other team all the time it doesn't half make it easy for them to defend, especially when your team isn't blessed with much pace, Calvert-Lewin aside. The best teams don't feel it necessary to go for the high press all the time, are patient and will let you play in areas where you aren't going to hurt them, before picking you off with pace and precision. The other side of that coin is that, if you are playing a team with better players on the whole, then you will either have to get lucky or you will have to outrun them, outcompete them, throw them off their game, have better teamwork and generally want it more. None of which is compatible with a slow possession game.

I read recently that Joachim Low looked hard at why Spain had overtaken Germany in the years after he took over as German national coach. Germany lost to Spain in the final of Euro 2008 and again in the semi-final of the 2010 World Cup, which Spain also won. He identified that the dwell time, the average time his players kept hold of the ball, was fractionally longer than Spain's and set about improving it. (Don't ask what the England national team dwell time is - I don't know but it is much longer than Germany's in 2010 that Low was unhappy with).

So playing proper possession football doesn't mean slow-slow, doesn't mean taking loads of touches, doesn't mean always taking a look and making sure. All of which are a sure way to struggle in terms of scoring goals. All good teams move the ball forward quickly at the earliest sensible opportunity.

I am reminded of what Joe Royle said when he took over at Everton, then marooned at the bottom of the Premier League back in November 1994. The turnround in fortunes was immediate, a derby match against Liverpool was won and in early December I was fortunate to see a stunning 3-0 home win against Leeds in which a revived Andy Hinchcliffe, soon to play for England, terrorised the opposition with his crosses, free kicks and corners. After 2 goals from corners a penalty was awarded and a wag near me in the stand joked "they're giving a way penalties rather than corners now!" Royle took Everton to an FA Cup win the same season and European qualification the next. Asked what changes he had made to produce this transformation he said that he had simply told the players to get the ball forward more quickly and reminded his strikers that you score goals by getting across defenders.

The other element of beating better teams is to have the home crowd on your side and roaring with enthusiasm. Which you don't get playing slowly.

I'm sure Ronald Koeman knows at least a thousand times as much about football as I do and his tactics may actually be the best that his current team can deploy. But it's boring to watch. I also read recently that Denis Law doesn't go to many matches now because he thinks the game is too slow and too much of the play is sideways. He doesn't enjoy watching the ball being knocked across the back four.

I'm with Denis and Joe on how football should be played.

And I think Everton would do better if they played at a higher tempo.

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