Middlesborough v Everton. The Everton Forum preview
The Bournemouth match was a little bit mental wasn’t it?
Everton scored after 30 seconds, were 3 up after half an hour, but still managed to threaten ‘an Everton’ for a considerable period of the second half before three late goals sealed the deal for the blues.
In the end it was an entertaining win that continued our impressive start to 2017 and put Romelu Lukaku at the top of the goal scorer charts for this season.
Our Hosts
This Saturday sees Everton travel to the Riverside Stadium to face 15th placed Middlesborough in a 3pm kick off.
Overall I think it’s fair to say Middlesborough will be a very different proposition to Bournemouth.
While last week’s opponents play an admirable style of football with an emphasis on attacking play, Saturday’s hosts are almost the complete opposite and will provide Everton a different sort of a challenge.
Boro manager Aitor Karanka has clearly built his Boro team on the foundation of stubborn defensive unit that are hard to beat first and foremost.
From the outside looking in, it seemed as though they achieved promotion last season by keeping things tight at the back and winning lots of games off the back of clean sheets. Having seen them a few times this season it appears the Boro blueprint for Premier League survival is based on a similar philosophy.
Although it’s understandable ‘sticking to what you know’ I think there are a couple of significant flaws with this approach. Put simply, placing a clear emphasis on not letting goals in often means that the attacking third can be neglected and (shock horror) you find yourselves struggling to score goals when you need to. Couple this with coming across teams that have more quality than you’re used to defending and suddenly those games you were winning 1-0 in the Championship, you’re losing 1-0 in the Premier League.
I think Boro’s home goal numbers reflect this idea. They’ve only conceded 14 goals in their 12 games at home (the same as Southampton and West Brom) but what’s killing them is that they’ve scored the fewest home goals in the league; 11.
Results haven’t been great for the teesiders, they sit 1 point off the relegation zone and are in a poor trot of form that’s seen them pick up just 1 win and 3 draws in their last 10 league outings.
All in all, it’s been turgid stuff at the Boro this season and fans have made it clear on a few occasions that they (understandably) aren’t happy with the style of football (scoring less than a goal a game at home is grim). It’s also worth noting that Aitor Karanka has been in an ‘interesting’ mood of late, I recently heard him tell a press conference that he ‘doesn’t care’ about transfer business so I get the feeling there may be some underlying tension behind the scenes at Boro.
Moving on to focus on opposition players, the main danger men will likely take the form of explosive former Barcelona winger Adama Traore (probably the quickest player in the league) and Boro top scorer Alvaro Negredo. Other attacking outlets include Christian Stuani, Patrick Bamford, Rudy Gestede, Stewart Downing and Viktor Fischer. With the greatest of respect to that core of attacking players, it looks to be lacking.
I’d imagine that there will be an aerial threat to deal with, especially if Gestede and Negredo are employed in the same team. Both are powerful in the air, so silly free kicks and corners around the area should be avoided.
The Boro midfield will be comprised of no frills midfielders such as Adam Clayton, Adlem Guedioura, Marten de Roon and former Everton man Adam Forshaw. Again, looking at these players, as much as they’ll get stuck in, you can’t help but feel they lack a certain quality in bringing the ball forwards (the main Boro attacking midfielder, Gaston Ramirez remains sidelined for this).
As I mentioned the hub of this Middlesborough team is its defence. Captain Ben Gibson has played every minute this season and leads by example whilst the on-loan Arsenal man Callum Chambers has partnered him with a point to prove. The full backs will likely take the form of Antonio Barragan and Fabio while in goal will be the former Barcelona keeper, Victor Valdes.
Although I’ve been quite critical of this Boro team, their defensive record is decent so it’s going to be imperative Everton score first in this match. If Boro can nick the first goal, they’ll probably back themselves to get a draw as a minimum out of this match. Yet if Everton score first, I can see Boro heads dropping and a little bit of discontent coming from the stands.
The Toffees
Everton come into this game with no reported injury worries.
There was talk that James McCarthy had experienced a reoccurrence of his hamstring trouble against Bournemouth but the Everton Forum understands (through WRD) that he was substituted as a precaution.
Even if Ronald Koeman chooses to take further precaution with McCarthy (given his historic troubles) it isn’t like Everton are struggling for midfield alternatives. Any two of Morgan Schneiderlin, Idrissa Gueye, Gareth Barry and Tom Davies can be chosen to play alongside an in-form Ross Barkley.
Last week Ronald Koeman chose to pack the middle third of the pitch against Bournemouth, sacrificing a centre half (Mason Holgate). It’ll be interesting to see if he maintains that formation or goes back to the 3 centre halves that served Everton so well prior to the last match. My guess is we will see a return to the back 3 but I wouldn’t be surprised if the shape that scored 3 in half an hour against Bournemouth was selected again.
Given the form of the team, a lot the players more or less pick themselves at the moment. You can be quite certain we’ll start with; Joel Robles, Seamus Coleman, Leighton Baines, Ashley Williams, Ramiro Funes Mori, Morgan Schneiderlin, Ross Barkley and Romelu Lukaku.
It’s great to have a spine of a team that you can hang your hat on starting and in those 8 I think we’ve finally found it (not to say they won’t make mistakes and can’t be improved on in the summer, especially in defence, but having spent so long searching for a spine, I think the manager has found it for now).
The other 3 names Koeman selects depend on the formation he chooses and who’s impressed this week in training. We clearly have competition for the role in behind Lukaku as well as alongside Morgan Schneiderlin. Personally I’d choose Idrissa Gana Gueye, Kevin Mirallas and Tom Davies for this game, but I could just as easily see Koeman selecting Mason Holgate, Gareth Barry and Ademola Lookman.
Regardless of which 11 Koeman selects, if Everton control the game and limit defensive mistakes, they should win this match. I don’t think it’ll be easy, even if I consider Boro to have one of the worst squads and the most boring style in the league.
The blues need to do the basics, get their noses in front and stay professional. Do that and they’ll win here.
I’m going for a 2-0 Everton win.
COYB!
Finally, the match will be refereed by Mike Dean. The man who hadn’t reffed an Everton game in a decade before he was awarded the Merseyside derby. Let’s not forget he’s an imbecile who loves making the headlines (don’t give him a decision to make, for god’s sake Everton!)