I honestly find the idea of anyone saying that Everton is a long ball team quite ridiculous and shows a lack of insight into the way Everton plays. Yes, Everton does have an ariel threat in the presence of Marouane Fellaini who wins most of the headers he goes up for but that is far from the playing style of Everton. Indeed, the stats support my conclusion, with long passes forming only 14% of Everton's passes, comparable to Liverpool's 11%. I cannot quite phantom why Everton's attractive style of play can be compared to that of long balls and I will set out to dissect their main attacking styles in this post.
Their main threat comes down their left, something that all opponents are aware of yet most are unable to prevent successfully, with Steven Pienaar and Leighton Baines combining to devastating effect. This might be one of the best combinations not just in England but around the world, with their understanding of each other's movements and speed bordering on telepathic. The logic is simple. Baines will pass to Pienaar before dashing forward. Pienaar will choose the perfect moment when Baines is almost past the defender to release a through pass and set Baines free to either send in a cross or shot. Sometimes, Osman, Jelavic or Fellaini joins in the combination to facilitate the movement of the ball.
The lethality of this tactic is the accuracy of passes by the players involved, which are weighted just nicely to ensure there is space for the player receiving the ball. This is actually Everton;s main route of attack and if any of Baines or Pienaar has a poor game, this tactic and Everton's game normally does not end well. Recently though, Kevin Mirallas has proved himself to be a more than able replacement for Pienaar as a link up with Baines and it will be exciting if he can recreate this scenario on the opposite flank with Seamus Coleman and Everton will then be a really dangerous team on both flanks.
Their second common route of attack will be the one most people might misunderstand as a long ball approach. For me, a long ball punt will be one where the team hoofs the ball up mindlessly, hoping that the ball is won by one of their team-mates. Everton's tactic on the other hand is more calculated and aimed at making full use of Fellaini's ability to control the ball from the air and hold up the ball. In this case, the Everton defence will provide a delicate chip to the chest height of Fellaini, who being in front of the opposing defender will be easily able to reach the ball first. With his back facing the goal, Fellaini will hold the ball up while the Everton midfielders and full backs swamp up to support the attack. This tactic I believe is a more recent one employed by Everton, one designed to counter the fairly true criticisms that they in past seasons often lacked support for their attacks, causing a dearth of goals. Once again, this is only effective due to the personnel available to them, namely Fellaini, who has unusually good ball control for his size and the high fitness of the runners in the team who are able to sustain long periods of moving up and down the pitch at high speeds.
A third option Everton has in attack is their prolific striker Nikica Jelavic, whose constant movement is always a threat. Watching Everton's games, I have realised that one of his favourite runs is out to the flanks, where he will drag the defenders out with him before reversing the ball back to the midfield runners at the edge of the box who then have a clear sight of goal.
Of course, Everton does possess the threat of scoring from a set piece of the kind of route one football every team is able to employ at some point or other but they are by no means a long ball team so credit to Gerrard for coming out and proclaiming that he was wrong in what he said.
Sidenote: Anyone can provide links to websites that provide free to use stats? Any help will be greatly appreciated and will greatly enhance the quality of the posts that i put up. Thank you.
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