Easy pickings for the Cherries
A seasoned Everton watcher at the Vitality Stadium observed that it was like the visiting line-up were playing like strangers but it was hardly surprising given that manager Frank Lampard changed his entire team and formation and nowhere was the lack of coherence more evident than the visitors’ shambolic defence who were ripped to shreds by Bournemouth. It’s not like it was even the Cherries’ main men either with the hosts of course making nine switches in personnel themselves but in the end this romp in the first of back-to-back fixtures between the sides proved to be embarrassingly easy for the hosts.
Having deployed a flat back four since the end of August, Lampard reverted to a central defensive trio here but rather than press their claims for a more prolonged recall, Mason Holgate, Michael Keane and Yerry Mina instead just displayed why they all have major question marks hanging over their heads concerning their Everton futures. Holgate, who’d already had James Garner flapping his arms at him in exasperation after allowing a square pass in the first half to roll out of play, suffered a personal calamity when he collapsed in a heap, slipping on the wet turf when goalkeeper Asmir Begovic tapped what should have been a routine pass to him and the howler resulted in Bournemouth’s second goal with the Yorkshireman subsequently hauled off just moments later.
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Michael Keane was also culpable for his sluggish reading of the play in the build-up to Bournemouth’s first goal while Yerry Mina appeared to be shaking off the rust akin to the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz as he finally returned to action after going off injured in Everton’s first fixture of the season against Chelsea. Such repeated fitness issues for the Colombian who has featured in just 80 of the Blues’ 166 Premier League games since he signed for the club in 2018 make it look increasingly unlikely that his contract will be extended beyond the end of the season as in contrast to that, summer signings James Tarkowski and Conor Coady have come in and added both assurance and the kind of durability that Mina has been unable to provide and their respective returns on Saturday cannot come quick enough, even if the Leicester City game was not their finest hour.
Finishing school
Amadou Onana revealed before Everton’s previous match against Leicester City that he’s been regularly watching videos of Frank Lampard’s goals from his manager’s playing career and while he quipped that even at 44, “we know he’s better than most of us”, it seems as though the tutelage of having the most-prolific goalscoring midfielder in Premier League history as their gaffer still isn’t rubbing off on the Blues squad. Even in games in which they haven’t dominated, Everton’s players have been guilty of not taking clear-cut chances at crucial moments of games and it’s become a worrying trend in recent weeks.
Both Onana himself and Demarai Gray failed to hit the target when through on goal in the 2-0 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur; ditto Alex Iwobi against Leicester City – all while the game was goalless and in the balance – while Dominic Calvert-Lewin also squandered the type of opportunity you’d expect an Everton number nine to tuck away in front of the Gwladys Street when trailing 1-0 to Leicester City on Saturday. Lampard himself called out such profligacy in his post-match press conference with Tom Davies’ big miss shortly after Bournemouth had gone ahead standing out.
As mentioned already, this was a defensive debacle for Everton but although the Blues have tightened up considerably after shipping 66 goals in the Premier League last season, their paltry 11 goals from 14 games in the competition to date this term isn’t just down to a lack of creativity but an alarming absence of composure in such positions. The hope must be that most of their games under Lampard will be much-tighter than this but if that’s the case, they need to become much more ruthless when the ball does fall to them in the opposition danger zones.
Rare Patt on the back
Lampard claimed that despite changing his entire starting line-up, he felt this Everton side should still have been more than capable of beating a Bournemouth outfit who had made nine alterations themselves and one of those players brought in who could legitimately claim to now be a Blues regular was their outstanding performer on the night, Nathan Patterson.
The youngster’s career south of the border got off to a false start last term after his January transfer from Rangers and although he had a mere 45-minute run-out against non-League Boreham Wood to show from his first six months at Goodison Park, the right-back has been making up for lost time when on the field this season. Bouncing back from a chastening display in the 4-0 friendly defeat to Everton legend Adrian Heath’s Major League Soccer outfit Minnesota United – the nadir of Lampard’s pre-season preparations – Patterson was one of the Blues’ most-promising performers in the opening seven fixtures before he picked up an ankle injury on international duty with Scotland.
Now back fit and with a couple of substitute appearances under his belt in the Premier League since returning, other than Demarai Gray’s goal, Patterson’s personal display was arguably Everton’s only real highlight from this horror show on the Dorset coast. As solid as captain Seamus Coleman has been throughout the absence of the 21-year-old being groomed to be his long-term successor, the energy levels of a prospect who is 13 years his junior add an extra dynamic to Everton’s play and allow the team to attack down both flanks, which is particularly useful considering that while Vitalii Mykolenko is a willing runner down the left, he is more naturally defensively inclined.
There was a sting in the tail for Patterson, who remains of course a work in progress, as his mistake giving away possession cheaply to Siriki Dembele allowed Bournemouth through for their final goal but if more of his team-mates had shown his vibrancy then the Blues wouldn’t have been left chasing the game in such desperate fashion.
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