In more senses than one, Everton’s start to the 2024-25 season has been about missed opportunities.
With their opening 10 games measured by Opta as the most favourable statistically in the Premier League, Sean Dyche’s side would have hoped for more than a two-point buffer between themselves and the relegation places at this stage — particularly with matches against Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City to come in December.
Based on the fixture list, Everton really should be sitting comfortably in mid-table right now. That they are only 15th, out of 20, owes a great deal to a faltering attack that has scored 10 goals in their 12 games.
Saturday’s goalless draw at home to 10-man Brentford followed a familiar, frustrating pattern.
Dyche’s men pushed for a winner after Christian Norgaard’s 41st-minute red card but could not produce the quality to break the visitors down. For all their huff and puff, Everton rarely managed to work the ball into dangerous areas against Brentford’s low block. On the few occasions they did, the finishing touch was lacking.
Everton took 27 shots in the game, yet posted an expected goals tally (xG) of just under 1.2. Brentford, by comparison, managed a similar xG figure despite having just nine attempts.
Problems in front of goal are nothing new for Everton, or Dyche. Last season, the Goodison side were undermined by their lack of efficiency in the attacking third and became heavily reliant on their solid defensive core to help them earn enough points to avoid relegation.
“It has been a reality for a long time here,” Dyche said after Saturday’s match. “Developing people who score goals is the toughest challenge as a manager, so if you can’t develop individuals, you want to try to develop a team that can.”
Nearly two years into his Everton tenure, however, there is no real sign he is close to finding solutions to this issue.
Why it’s not just about finishing
In the opening months of last season, a pattern started to emerge for Everton. They were creating enough chances to win games, but could not find that ruthless edge in terms of converting them.
Everton ended the 2023-24 campaign as the Premier League’s biggest underperformers in front of goal, scoring a whopping 14 fewer than their xG figure, with striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin the division’s biggest single culprit.
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A different picture has emerged this time around. Everton are still underperforming their xG, but the quality of chances they are creating has slumped significantly. Having ranked 12th in the top flight for xG last season, they are now 17th.
The Brentford game offered a window on their issues. Of those 27 shots mentioned above, 11 came from outside the penalty area — which is where nearly a third of their attempts this season have been from.
Here is Everton’s combined shot map for their 12 league matches so far.
The big takeaway is that Dyche is yet to find a formula to guarantee a regular supply of chances in advantageous areas close to the opponents’ goal.
Everton’s xG per shot of 0.08 is the lowest in the Premier League, and down on last season’s total of 0.11, suggesting they are struggling to create clear-cut chances consistently. Only Leicester, who are one place below them in the table and just sacked manager Steve Cooper, have had fewer ‘big chances’ according to Opta, while they have also kept just 30 per cent of their shots on target — the lowest rate in the division this season — leading to an underperformance of 3.4 on their xG.
Finishing is still clearly a problem for Everton, but a lack of creativity is an even bigger one.
Open play struggles — personnel, coaching or both?
It should come as little surprise that Dyche’s Everton are struggling most in open play. Compared to last season, their total non-penalty xG per game is down (from 1.4 to 1.1).
Dyche is not a manager who values possession for possession’s sake. His players are coached, above all else, to be compact, defensively resolute and pose a threat from their attacking set pieces. In the early part of pre-season in particular, fitness work takes primacy. Then comes a focus on team shape.
Everton have had the lowest share of the ball (40 per cent) in the Premier League this season and are the most direct, having sent the highest majority of their passes forwards. They rarely look to sustain spells of possession or probe for ways to pick the opposing team apart.
Only Wolves and Brentford have attempted fewer passes in what is known as zone 14 of the pitch — the key central area immediately outside the opponents’ penalty box — this season. They continue to increase their share of attacks funnelled down the flanks compared to previous seasons, with only Crystal Palace averaging fewer passes in the final third before they cross.
The flaws in that kind of setup were laid bare during almost an hour playing against the 10 men of Brentford. Everton lacked ideas and were unable to fall back on clearly defined patterns of play when in possession.
Speaking to The Athletic during pre-season, Everton’s assistant manager Ian Woan suggested they are at their best when they average around 300 passes a game. Out of necessity, they attempted 465 passes on Saturday, and struggled. Dyche has only won two games in which Everton have had more than 50 per cent of the ball since being appointed in January last year.
The Everton manager has regularly — and, in fairness, accurately — bemoaned a lack of spending power compared to his peers.
“(Scoring goals has) been a longstanding thing here,” he said. “Most managers do that by chequebook. We can’t do that. So the development continues. That is what we’re looking to do — remind players of their skill set, of their strengths and working towards them.”
Everton remain the only Premier League side to have a positive transfer balance over the last five seasons, impacting their ability to recruit game-changing talent.
Only two of their players, forward Dwight McNeil and right-back Ashley Young, have created more than 15 chances this season. When a move for their top wing target, Wilfried Gnonto of Championship side Leeds United, was thwarted over the summer, they signed Jesper Lindstrom on loan from Napoli of Italy’s Serie A. Losing someone of Alex Iwobi’s talent when he moved to Fulham in summer 2023 has harmed the team’s ability to pick the lock on opposition defences.
In the full-back positions, they lack creativity and dynamism: left-back Vitalii Mykolenko has delivered one assist in his 96 games for the club, a far cry from the days when Everton had Leighton Baines or Lucas Digne rampaging down that flank.
The tactical shift that has had an impact
It was interesting to hear Dyche speak openly on Saturday about the tactical challenges his side have faced this season and their attempts to remedy them. He clearly feels they were too open and conceding too many goals in the early part of the campaign — something that has since improved — and has looked to go back to a more cautious blueprint.
“We were conceding far too many and had to change that,” Dyche said. “Now you’ve got to stay effective on the offensive side. We scored a bit more freely at the beginning of the season, but we were conceding too many.”
That pragmatism may have helped their fortunes at the back, but it has had a clear knock-on effect in attacking situations.
Last season, Everton were among the most effective teams in the Premier League at regaining the ball high up the pitch. They suffocated and pressurised opponents, and this became a key part of their offensive blueprint.
As we can see from the graphic below detailing their rolling average for ball recoveries in the final third, an initial spike under Dyche in the middle of 2022-23 was followed by a significant drop-off towards the end of last season.
Notably, that dip started after the 6-0 away defeat against Chelsea in April where they made 12 high recoveries but were cut apart in the space vacated.
Set pieces are no longer Everton’s superpower
Given their failings from open play, any fall at all in Everton’s set-piece prowess is likely to have a significant impact.
Last season, Dyche’s side excelled in this area, generating xG of around seven per 100 set pieces, which was by far the best rate in the league. Twelve games into the current one, they are still among the most effective but that figure has fallen to five per 100.
The effect is being seen in the goals-scored column. Where they managed 7.6 goals per 100 set pieces last season, that has slipped to a touch under five. There is still a clear emphasis and reliance on set pieces, but Everton are less effective in that department.
There are several factors that may help explain the drop-off.
Alex Scanlon, the first-team analyst responsible for set pieces, left the club at the end of last season and now works for the FA. Changes in coaches and personnel can have an impact and the club have recently advertised a vacancy in their analysis department. Also, due to injuries, Everton have had to tweak their setup from attacking set pieces regularly.
With their numbers elsewhere so low though, Dyche and his staff will no doubt see improvements in this area as a key way of helping fix Everton’s faltering attack.
(Top photo: Matt McNulty/Getty Images)
