Everton vs West Ham: Opposition Analysis | Finding That Winning Feeling

A run of early season wins came to a halt as Everton were held to a goalless draw at home by a surprisingly ineffective Aston Villa. A kind-of expected defeat by reigning champions Liverpool, in the Anfield derby, followed, but Tuesday’s EFL Cup exit at Molineux, to a Wolves side that the Blues had beaten at the same ground a few weeks earlier, has served to dissipate much of the positivity surrounding the club.

Both rotated heavily, but the Old Gold showed far more cohesion — the visitors resembling a team of strangers by comparison. Multiple introductions of first eleven players in the second half failed to make any difference, with the Toffees going down meekly by two goals to nil. There’s no way to excuse bowing out of what was – realistically – one of only two routes to potential silverware for the Blues this term, against an opponent in such poor form.

The team now heads into two consecutive home games before there’s a pause for another international break. Next Sunday, they entertain a rampant Crystal Palace, currently on the longest unbeaten run amongst top-flight sides, who will present formidable opposition. But first, Everton faces a struggling West Ham United, under the lights at Hill Dickinson Stadium, on Monday night.

Form

The Hammers endured a difficult first campaign following David Moyes’ departure, with a combination of Julen Lopetegui and Graham Potter guiding the club to a desultory 14th in the league. The former Brighton and Chelsea man took over from the underperforming Spaniard, but little sign of improvement was evident, though the Londoners managed a dull draw with Moyes’ Everton in the final meeting between the two clubs at Goodison Park. It was apparent that a major rebuild of a stale, ageing squad was urgently needed during the summer, but the Hammers hierarchy spent much of the transfer window in apparent inaction.

The club’s first action was to sanction the sale of talented attacking Mohammed Kudus to rivals Tottenham Hotspur, for €64m. Although some was reinvested a few days later, in promising left back El Hadji Malick Diouf (€22m, Slavia Praha), only free agents, in fullback Kyle Walker-Peters and veteran striker Callum Wilson were added in the following weeks, along with goalkeeper Mads Hermansen (€20.8m, Leicester). Only in the closing days of the window did a flurry of signings arrive, in midfielders Soungoutou Magassa (€17m, Monaco) and Mateus Fernandes (€44m, Southampton), in addition to Brighton’s flop defender Igor Julio (loan).

So far the campaign has resembled a car crash, with West Ham embarrassed by Premier League new boys Sunderland in match-week one, crushed at home by Chelsea and dumped out of the EFL cup by a struggling Wolves. A freakish 3-0 at the City Ground offered respite — though the turmoil between Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis and manager Nuno Espírito Santo at that time offers an explanation for what was an outlier result. Defeats at the London Stadium to Spurs and Crystal Palace were the final straw for Potter, though the trigger was not pulled until Saturday, just two days before the team’s trip to Hill Dickinson Stadium — with Nuno the replacement.

Style of Play

What can be gleaned here? Tonight’s visitors had started off in a back three formation, before switching to a 4-2-3-1 for Potter’s last three games in charge, but that means little now, with nothing really to go on as to what Nuno will prefer. The Portuguese had favoured a 4-2-3-1 at Forest, though had demonstrated some flexibility in the way he set the team up. With only one training session under his belt with West Ham, it’s not likely that he’ll implement any radical formational shifts.

Nuno is experienced in the league, first enjoying success in getting Wolves promoted and then established in the top flight, before a short-lived failure at Spurs. After that bruising experience, he successfully rebuilt his reputation with Forest, guiding them to a return to continental competition, in the form of the Europa League, via a seventh-place finish last term, before falling foul of the club’s volatile owner.

He now has a big opportunity to turn around what has been a terrible start to the season by the Londoners, in what could be considered a step up in terms of club size – and support – from his two successes in England. Nuno’s style is well-established, and he’ll look to tighten up the team’s leaky defence (a joint-worse 13 league goals, a big underperformance from an xGA of 7.6) and get them sitting in a low block and playing on the counter. Whether he has the personnel to make this work straightaway is questionable.

Team Assessment

Hermansen will likely guard the net in Nuno’s first game in charge, though the Dane’s save rate of 58.6% puts him in the bottom percentile of goalkeepers operating in top European leagues, so it’s possible that veteran Alphonse Areola may continue. In the absence of the injured Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Walker-Peters will line up at right back, with Diouf on the left. Max Kilman and Konstantinos Mavropanos will occupy the centre of the back four. Both are solid in the air.

With former Everton target Tomas Soucek still serving a three-match suspension, it is likely that Nuno will retain Fernandes and James Ward-Prowse as a midfield pairing, though Magassa and the experienced Guido Rodriguez offer more defensive options. In front, occupying an obvious Morgan Gibbs-White role, will be Lucas Paquetá, who is arguably the team’s best player, and certainly its most creative.

In attack, the manager has a couple of alternatives who could lead the line, in veteran pair Wilson and Nicolas Fullkrug. The former looks more of a goal threat, though the latter offers some of the physical presence which Nuno favoured in Chris Wood, at Forest. The German has been a flop so far, however. Star attacker Jarrod Bowen will occupy the right side of a front three, with the speedy Crysencio Summerville deployed on the left.

Prediction

Ideally, it would have been preferred if the visitors had not dispensed with their manager before tonight’s game. Aside from the “dead cat bounce” phenomenon, Potter was a man who was floundering, seemingly devoid of ideas as to how to turn things around, and Nuno is simply a better head coach. The only benefit – for Everton – in this abrupt change, is in the timing, with the new boss not having had any real time to instil his tactics into the side. It’s probable that this won’t happen until after the international break, but even so the visitors are almost certainly going to be set up in a more solid defensive shape than has been the case previously.

Nuno was able to adapt to being parachuted into Forest partway through a season, though it has to be said that his results in that first partial season were not that great, with the team just about staying in the division. West Ham do possess a couple of high-calibre performers – in Bowen and Paquetá – along with some promising youngsters, including some promoted from the academy, but are lacking in many areas, and still have too many older players on their books. It remains to be seen what the manager can do with what he has available.

They’ll be facing a wholly different Everton side to the one which flopped at Molineux on Tuesday. It’s quite easy to pick the team which Moyes will send out, with Jordan Pickford restored, behind a back four of Jake O’Brien, James Tarkowski, Michael Keane and Vitaliy Mykolenko. In midfield, it’ll be Idrissa Gueye alongside James Garner, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall operating higher up. Star man Jack Grealish will be on the left, and Iliman Ndiaye on the right. The only question is whether Beto, or Thierno Barry will be preferred up top.

The strikers have both been hauled off at halftime in the last two games, which is neither a ringing endorsement of them by Moyes, nor a pattern which is likely to get the best from either. The manager must also find solutions to what is starting to look like a predictable way in which the team is attacking. All play goes through Grealish, or Ndiaye, who receive little in the way of support from fullback, or midfield. KDH is a nice footballer, but is more of a linking player than a presence in the box, which leaves the striker isolated, reduced to competing for high balls, back to goal. Neither are suited to this way of playing.

Nuno surely has taken note, and will have the visitors doubling up on the two Blues wingers, knowing that any overlap from either Mykolenko or O’Brien is unlikely to present much danger, and that the hosts’ midfielders rarely get forward to any great effect. I expect West Ham to set up in a compact shape, focus on Grealish and Ndiaye, and to smother Everton’s play in central areas. It’s up to Moyes to find some ideas to prevent that from happening. While it’s true that the supporting cast didn’t exactly convince in midweek, the Toffees boss must utilize bench options such as Tyler Dibling, Carlos Alcaraz and Adam Aznou to freshen things up — with time to actually effect the game.

Score: Everton 2-1 West Ham

Statistics provided courtesy of transfermarkt.com and fbref.com