Everton vs West Ham United: Preview

It feels like far longer than a fortnight, but finally the Premier League is back after the international break.

Both West Ham and this weekend’s opposition, Everton, have fallen victim to a host of injuries to key players over the past two weeks – so much so, that Saturday’s game will be something of a who’s who of missing players.

Whilst West Ham are almost likely to be without key players Stewart Downing, Diafra Sakho, Winston Reid and Alex Song, Everton themselves have an injury list that currently runs to 11 players potentially out of this game.

Fortunately for the Toffees though, the one man West Ham would have hoped to miss the game is fit and healthy. We all remember what Romelu Lukaku did to us in his two appearances against the Hammers last year, but I’ll bring it up again just for the sake of being a sadist.

Across two games, the Belgian played just 77 minutes against West Ham, but managed 6 shots, 6 attempted take ons, and scored two decisive goals after the 80 minute mark.

The two images below show Lukaku’s heat maps from those two games. Left is the home 3-2 defeat, and right is the away 1-0 loss. You can see in both that Lukaku got heavily involved in both games despite only have short cameos from the bench.

http://epl.squawka.com/west-ham-united-vs-everton/
http://epl.squawka.com/everton-vs-west-ham-united/

How do you stop Everton?
Everton may have had a slightly rocky start to the season, but in the last couple of months they have been getting back to their best, particularly at Goodison Park. As we know from experience, Goodison is not an easy place to visit, and not many teams come away with anything to show for their efforts.

Having said that, in their last home game, Everton could only manage a goalless draw with Swansea City.

People might initially think that there is little point in West Ham looking to Swansea’s result for inspiration, giving the differing styles of play the two sides have. We aren’t really a long ball side (particularly this season), but Swansea have been championed as the tika-taka kings of Britain.

However, when you actually look at that game, you’ll notice that the Swans had a pass completion rate of just 78%, and managed just 40% possession. What Swansea actually did, is defend aggressively – something West Ham are more than capable of!

During the game, Swansea made 42 clearances, 18 interceptions, blocked 5 shots, and – perhaps most importantly – put in 47 tackles.

Under Roberto Martinez, Everton have become known for their slick passing style, running with the ball, and generally being easy on the eye. Any team that likes to knock the ball about struggle when bodies are being flung left right and centre.

The image below shows Swansea’s attempted tackles. They only won 34% of their tackles, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s about disrupting play, closing down ball players, committing fouls if necessary.

http://epl.squawka.com/everton-vs-swansea-city/

And Swansea aren’t the only team to adopt this approach to find success at Goodison. Since the start of last season, Everton have played 24 home games, winning 14, drawing 5 and losing 5.What is interesting, is that when Everton fail to win, the number of tackles put in by the opposition is greater than when the Toffees do win. The chart below shows the average number of tackles by the opposition team by Everton result.As you can see, when Everton win at home, the opposition attempt an average of 35 tackles per game, compared to 43 for an away victory. Of course, putting in tackles doesn’t mean you’re going to come away from Goodison with anything other than a disappointing drive home, but what it does suggest is that the Toffees struggle when they aren’t afforded time on the ball.

Weakness
Picking a weakness for Everton is pretty difficult. Martinez’s side are a well oiled machine, with each member knowing his job inside out, and executing it very well. What does have the potential to weaken them though, is an injury list as long as your arm.

Lots of their injured players are expected to have late fitness tests, and many will be fit for the game, but the potential absences of Seamus Coleman, Leighton Baines and Bryan Oviedo means the only fit, experienced fullback in the squad is veteran Tony Hibbert.

Should Coleman and Baines miss out, the Everton side will be weakened considerably. The flying fullbacks have created 36 chances, collected 7 assists, and scored 4 goals in the Premier League this season. And on top of that, they’ve also made 89 defensive actions.

Hibbert isn’t the worst back up in the world, with 325 Everton games under his belt, and capable of filling in at both right and left fullback. However, he is a significant step down in quality from the two regulars, and has only managed 9 league games since the start of the 2012/13 season.

Conclusion
Everton away is a tough nut to crack at the best of times, but when you’re missing a number of your best players, the task gets significantly harder.

The saving grace for West Ham may be that Everton are likely to be missing a least a few of their own key men. Also, the fact that defending with your life is a key part of getting something from Goodison could mean our gameplan may still have the right men to be effective.

For match stats, visit my personal West Ham dedicated blog.