Tactical Deconstruction: Newcastle 0-3 Everton

The preamble 

We came into this fixture on the back of three home wins on the spin but in the knowledge that our away results this year have been shite even if our displays have – barring one – been very good. Away form in the last 2 seasons after the turn of the year has generally been iffy – we’ve averaged 1.6 points per game away from home in the 1st half of the season and just 0.6 per game in the 2nd half of season.  Newcastle’s home form was not exactly worrying, though, and going into last night’s game they had scored just 2 goals in their last 6 at St James and without Cabaye and Remy they’ve looked increasingly toothless in the final third.

Teams

Everton made 2 changes from the Swansea win with Osman and Deulofeu coming in for Mirallas and McGeady. Shape wise it was a bit different too, with more of a 4-3-1-2 look about it with Barkley in behind Lukaku and Deulofeu. Our wing backs completed just 8 final third passes in the game (compared to 22 in the reverse fixture) and had more of a defensive brief to allow the likes of Deulofeu and Barkley to remain in dangerous positions ready for turnovers in possession to unleash hell. Newcastle lined up in more of a 4-4-2 with Cisse and de Jong up front.

First half

Although Newcastle initially had the upper hand in the first few minutes we soon began to take a foothold in the game.

Osman was the game’s key man and his role was quite interesting from a tactical standpoint. Predominately he would occupy a central role next to Barry and McCarthy against Newcastle’s midfield two. As one of either Tiote or Anita would come to press him, this then vacated the space they were controlling and afforded Barkley bags of room to operate in dangerous positions close to Newcastle’s box in the first half. By way of example, Osman played in Barkley 9 times in the first half which was our most frequent pass combination. Osman was finding spaces at the sharp end too, and his delightful threaded pass provided Lukaku with a one on one that he should have burst the net with in what was our first clear-cut opening of the game.

Barkley and Deulofeu hadn’t started a game in the league together prior to last night and whilst both are raw they were ideally suited to an opponent who, at home, were always going to come onto us regardless of whether it was in their best interests to do so. This was evident in the data, as Newcastle won double the amount of loose balls in our half than we did in theirs. Whilst their approach was to attack from the front, ours was to lie in wait and act as an insurgent, and on 22 minutes we showed why.

After a Newcastle corner was cleared by Stones, a deft touch from Deulofeu enabled Barkley to run from his own half, evade some limp challenges and slot superbly with his supposedly weaker left peg. It was a truly sublime goal and the first time he’s scored in back to back games for the toffees.

Second half

After the interval we wasted no time in putting the game to bed and the role of Osman was again crucial. The diminutive schemer again found bags of space to receive from Lukaku before spreading play to the Kanchelskis like Deulofeu. The Spaniard tore past the hapless Dummett before teeing up Lukaku for a nice finish.

Deulofeu’s role was particularly eye-catching and he was involved in all 3 goals as well as  beating his man a whopping 6 times. Defenders don’t want to get too close to him as they know he’ll burn past them whilst if they drop off this widens the pitch and gives us more space to operate between opposition line of defence and midfield. In a nutshell it s a win-win situation.

With Alan Partridge banned from the stadium it was left to microwave pizza loving shitehawk John Carver to roll the toon army dice on the hour mark, sending on Ben Arfa to the right flank for the anonymous De Jong. Martinez responded by switching McCarthy to the left of the midfield 3 to keep an eye on him with Osman shuffling over to the right. Whilst Newcastle had their ‘moments’ it was us who would have the final say and against it was Osman who was at the sharp end of things. After more good work from Deulofeu to pick out Lukaku, the Belgian then squared it to Osman who was able to pull out one of his finest monte cristo’s from his smoking jacket and puff a fat one right into Krul’s overused net.

Conclusion 

This was a well deserved win against a capable opponent. In general we looked more ruthless than in any of our previous 3 goodison wins were opponents have sat deep and denied us space in behind. The Arsenal draw certainly makes things interesting now in the ‘race for 4th’ particularly with City next up for them with us travelling to lowly Fulham. If results go in our favour we’d overtake them with a win at Goodison in a fortnight and we still have that game in hand too. Obviously this is Everton so that sequence of events won’t happen, but after last nights performance it’s made us dare to dream at least.
EB