Everton’s relentless march up the table continued at a frightening speed as a sorry Stoke side were taken apart in what was one of the most one sided games seen at Goodison in a long while.
Lets row through the goals from yesterday’s comprehensive win….
Everton 1-0 Stoke (Deulofeu) The first goal was Deulofeu’s first for the club and it was a move he started himself from the left side, playing a nice one two with Pienaar before Barry slots him in to stab home. Nzonzi (circled) has Barry marked initially but is then guilty of completely switching off and allowing Barry to waltz into the box to tee up Deulofeu. The barca loanee had a very productive afternoon, also making the most shots and dribbles by some distance of any player on the pitch.
Everton 2-0 Stoke (Coleman) The second goal was all about Coleman (circled) and his desire to bust a gut and run half the length of the pitch to get on the end of Deulofeu’s centre via Barry. Both Barry and Coleman’s touches were a bit jammy but Coleman’s relentless desire to get into the box and ahead of his marker (rs loanee Assaidi) was worthy of this piece of luck.
It’s also worth noting the service Deulofeu received and in particular from Osman who found the Spaniard 10 times – more than any other player as shown in the above passing grid. In turn, Osman was fed the most by Barry (18 times) in what was the most frequent passing combination of any two toffees. As well as his two assists, Barry also created the most chances, made the most tackles and – as usual – made the most passes.
Everton 3-0 Stoke (Oviedo) Bryan Oviedo had a decent game of what could be an extended run of matches for the Costa Rican and his goal was a nice bonus. After Oviedo had sumptuously back healed to Barry, the hapless Ryan Shawcross hacks the cross out for a corner. Deulofeu then takes a short corner into Oviedo and the wing back is able to stroll past an embarrassing attempt to press from Charlie ‘ye olde oak’ Adam (circled) before lashing home with his weaker right foot.
Everton 4-0 Stoke (Lukaku) Distin – now playing in a back three – feeds Osman who then plays a brilliant threaded pass to Oviedo who sells a dummy to Shea before teeing up Lukaku (again with his weaker right foot). The ‘big belgian’ then taps home with his right foot in what was his last touch of the game. Lukaku now has the best minutes per goal rate (117) in Premier League history. The defending again is pretty poor from Muniesa (circled) who is looking at the ball which enables Lukaku to not have to do much in terms of movement to get into the position to receive from Oviedo.
In summary….
Whilst this wasn’t as exciting a game as last week’s derby, there was some ‘liquid football’ on show from the Blues, sprinkled with some individual brilliance from Deulofeu. One of the big challenges when Martinez arrived in the summer was to improve our ability to dominate lesser sides as usually our games will be tight whether it be against the top six or bottom six. As an example, prior to yesterday’s game our last 5 meetings with Stoke have yielded just one goal by an Everton player so to get 4 and win in such an emphatic way shows the progress we are making.
Up the toffees!
EB
theexecutionersbong.wordpress.com 