Everton - Manchester United

Great result that eased much of my worries after that Arsenal game. What a great way to return from international break. Sorry for the delay in this post - I had to work over the weekend so could not watch until yesterday.

I was worried going into the game as Everton are a high energy pressing team but we completely dominated the game. That's one of my favorite things about having LVG as our manager. His style, when it works, allows us to dominate the opposition and control the game exactly how we want to.

Martial impressed me again but I'd like to see him playing up as a striker again. It doesn't make sense to put our best striker out wide and put Rooney who hasn't been scoring up front. Rooney did play a lot better and this was easily his best game of the season so far, but that's not saying much. Loved Herrera in the middle switching positions with Mata tucking in - they have a great connection and great understanding of movement.

1) Mata loses his man for the millionth time

This continues to be a big problem for us. I think LVG is getting tired of it too as there's a reason LVG subbed Mata out at half time and I'm sure this was part of it.

Below, it's only 2 minutes in and Mata already makes the mistake. He's starting in the same position as the Everton player - there's no disadvantage.

The problem is he doesn't keep up with the Everton player and they get a pass into him at a dangerous position.

Comparison

At the start of the second half, I noticed Martial in a similar position on the left flank. 

Martial realizes the danger and makes the proper defensive run and it blocks the pass so the pass never happened.

Who's the 19 year old kid and who's the experienced player?

2) Rooney's turning radius

This is just a little funny thing, not a huge criticism but it does show why Rooney can't really play in the 10 position which tends to be very congested. In this instance, Rooney actually did really well and got a good shot on goal.

Rooney receives the ball here.

Takes a touch backwards to make some space and get away from his man. You'd think he would be able to turn around and dribble it into space along the blue arrow at this point.

Except he keeps going and finally turns around now. I traced his turning path, look how big of a circle he took.

That's one of my problems with him playing in the hole. He doesn't have a good enough touch or confidence to play in tight spaces so whenever he receives the ball, instead of making a quick incisive pass, he needs to make a lot of room for himself first. This slows down our play and kind of defeats the purpose of having a player in the hole (here, he goes from in the hole to backwards and wide right).

3) Another reason LVG took Mata off at half time

Mata was good contributing to the attack but he had some really bad passes in our half. This was one of them.

Instead of clearing the ball out down the line or out to the right for a throw in, Mata kicks the ball right back into the most dangerous position along the blue arrow.

That's just an awful awful mistake. He had plenty of time to turn and just get the ball out of danger. Almost anything he could have done would have been better than sending the ball centrally at the top of the 18 yard box.

4) I wonder what SAF would have wanted

This isn't a criticism at all. Rooney has the ball and we're counter attacking. There aren't really any great options for him so Rooney turns around and passes it back.

The result: we have the ball safely.

We're up 2 to 0 and there's really no need to force a pass - I actually completely agree with Rooney passing backwards in this case and I think LVG appreciated it as well. Herrera doesn't have a ton of pace and there's no way Mata would have kept up with the counter attack.

It's just that I know under SAF, he would have been urging Rooney forward and he probably would have let the hairdryer loose on him for passing backwards like this. However, under SAF, we had Ronaldo instead of Herrera making the forward run and that's a big difference in counter attacking ability.

5) Jones needs to calm down (obviously)

Everton makes a pass along the red dotted line and Jones rushes forward to intercept it. 

He completely misses the ball and this is the result. Fortunately, one of our players covered it well.

It isn't a mistake to try and intercept it - that's fine in you make the interception. He just needs to know when he can rush forward to intercept it and when he cannot instead of trying to do this every time. 

Conclusion

I only had a few things noted in the second half and looking back at them, none of them are interesting or important enough to point out. Our second half performance was very very professional and I loved it - we were up 3 - 0 and we played safe, kept possession and created a few chances without risking too much. Perfect way to smother and control a 3 - 0 lead and Lingard did well covering up the holes Mata left on the right.

Any one watch Monday Night Football? Gary Neville did an analysis of this game and compared it to our game against Arsenal and he made the exact same point I made last week (1st point, midfield too aggressive) ;)

Anyways, thanks for reading and looking forward to our game against City next week!