Everton have unleashed new attacking weapon as striking anomaly emerges

Everton have unleashed new attacking weapon as striking anomaly emerges

Chris Beesley examines the numbers behind Everton's tactics in their 1-1 draw at Leicester City

Iliman Ndiaye of Everton runs with the ball under pressure from James Justin of Leicester City (Image: Carl Recine/Getty Images) )

Everton manager Sean Dyche described his side’s first Premier League point of the season as a “positive mini-step,” following their 1-1 draw with Leicester City but other than the result, just what was different about the Blues’ performance at the King Power Stadium? For the fourth consecutive match in all competitions, Dyche’s men failed to win despite scoring the first goal of the game, but despite Iliman Ndiaye’s 12th minute opener – his first strike in the Premier League – being cancelled out by Stephy Mavididi’s 73rd minute equaliser, there were several more encouraging aspects in the visitors’ display and here’s a breakdown of how they fared.

Offensive

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Everton had 12 shots compared to their seasonal average of 8.5 but this still resulted in three of these efforts being on target, which is exactly par for the course so far this term, although their expected goals (xG) went up from 0.96 to 1.62. Their big difference going forward was an almost doubling of their seasonal average for dribbles (19.5) to 37, 11 of which came from Ndiaye, with successful dribbles increasing from 10 to 18, again with the Senegal international providing 7.

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There were 297 offensive actions compared to a seasonal average of 257 and as a percentage, the amount of these which were successful increased from 58% to 63%.

Everton's heatmap at Leicester City compared to their previous Premier League games so far this season

Defensive

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Dyche highlighted the small number of chances that his side restricted the Foxes to, and Everton were busier at the back, with 79 ball recoveries compared to their average of 70.75 while interceptions went up from an average of 36.25 to 58.

Ball losses went down from 95.5 to 88 with a slightly lower expected goals against figure of 1.74 to this season’s average so far of 1.89.

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A striking anomaly in the figures surrounds Everton’s high pressing – applying pressure up the pitch when their opponents are in possession in their own half. Their average for the season was 17.5 per 90 minutes, but that has now gone down to 14.2 but that figure is second only to neighbours Liverpool on 16.4, with the Blues recorded as only doing one solitary high press throughout the entire game in the East Midlands.

ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley talks tactics with Comparisonator

Passing

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Given the difficult conditions with the middle part of the match being played in torrential rain due to a thunderstorm which caused the start of the second half to be delayed, Everton’s distribution was particularly impressive. They attempted 335 passes in total, up from their usual 279 figure, with 276 successful compared to their average of 216.

The Blues made 6 key passes as opposed to their usual 2.25 and they were also moving the ball around in more advanced areas with 159 passes in the opposition half compared to an average of 119 and 132 successful passes in the opposition half as opposed to 88.5.

*Comparisonator is a football data comparison tool from 271 professional leagues around the world which compares players and clubs by utilising over 100 different parameters. Click here for more details.

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