Conor Coady has highlighted a new problem that Everton…

Conor Coady has highlighted a new problem that Everton must solve

Conor Coady admitted that Everton’s display in their 3-0 defeat at Bournemouth was “shocking” and “nowhere near good enough” but just what did the Blues not do to let themselves down so badly in their second thrashing at the Vitality Stadium in the space of just four days?

Coady added: “Personal pride and standard is what we have to set in training, it is nothing to do with the manager or staff, we don’t have them at the minute. We need to look at ourselves long and hard and are going into a break now.”

After shipping 66 goals in the Premier League last term, Everton’s highest total since they conceded the same number in 1975/76 and the club’s worst since they let in 69 in 1960/61 (both of which were in 42-game seasons), manager Frank Lampard made trying to tighten up at the back one of his major priorities over the summer. While goals have been difficult to come by for the Blues with their main striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin injured for the bulk of the current campaign to date, their much-improved resoluteness had been cause for encouragement.

Everton went into their final home fixture before the World Cup break against Leicester City having conceded less than a goal a game (12 in 13 matches) but combined with the 4-1 Carabao Cup mauling, also against Bournemouth, they have now leaked nine goals in their last three matches. The slump represents an alarming and sudden defensive collapse from the Blues, especially given that their troubles at the other end of the pitch are continuing with just 11 goals scored from 15 games, the second lowest in the division alongside Nottingham Forest with only rock bottom Wolverhampton Wanderers (eight) having netted fewer.

When using Comparisonator to analyse Everton’s defensive display against Bournemouth on Saturday, there is one statistic that jumps out in terms of where the visitors fell short. Everton’s 27 interceptions against the Cherries was the lowest of any Premier League team over the weekend, in a category that they lead the division in this season with an average of 55.6 per game, more than double the number they made at the Vitality Stadium.

During 2022/23 so far, the Blues have made more interceptions than any other top flight side with last Saturday’s opponents Bournemouth their nearest challengers on 53.33 followed by Southampton on 51.53. Over last weekend though, Brentford and Leicester City were joint top of the figures with a monster 78 apiece in their away victories over Manchester City (2-1) and West Ham United (2-0) respectively, almost three times as many as Everton with Leeds United next up on 65 in their 4-3 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur.

While it’s clear that this is a section that the top teams don’t inhabit because they don’t have as much defending to do, for sides like Everton, it showed that they had been working hard. Coady’s strengths are more to do with reading the game as the spare man at the back but James Tarkowski (9.45) is the only Premier League centre-back averaging more than nine interceptions per game but he made just six at Bournemouth. Full-back pair Nathan Patterson and Vitalii Mykolenko had also topped their positions but the Scot, who made just two interceptions at the Vitality Stadium, has gone down from 7.22 before his injury to a figure of 6.25 which has him ranked fifth among right-backs in the division while the Ukrainian is on 6.81 which leaves him second only to Arsenal’s Kieran Tierney on 6.92 after being forced off injured after Bournemouth’s second goal on 25 minutes having failed to make a single interception.

Comparisonator is a football data comparison tool from 271 professional leagues around the world which compares players and clubs by utilising over 100 different parameters. Click here for more details.

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