Everton are finally off the mark. Having twice thrown away two-goal leads in the Premier League, capitulating to back-to-back defeats to Bournemouth and Aston Villa, the Toffees claimed their first victory of the season to move off the foot of the table and into 15th. Victory would have been a huge weight off the shoulders.
Following a solid end to the previous campaign – Sean Dyche oversaw a run of four wins in the final six games of the season to guarantee Everton’s safety despite an eight-point deduction – the expectation was that Everton would avoid another relegation dogfight in their final season at Goodison Park. The start, then, was far from ideal, and certainly not what supporters expected.
However, in what has been a dreary start on the blue half of Merseyside, a ray of sunshine has been the form of Dwight McNeil. Nominally a winger, Dyche decided to move McNeil into the No 10 role following back-to-back heavy defeats at the hands of Brighton and Tottenham, with the summer signing Iliman Ndiaye starting on the left.
Ndiaye’s hard work off the ball certainly contributed to the decision to move McNeil infield, and it’s one that has helped Everton in the final third. Indeed, Dyche’s side were far and away the biggest xG underperformers in the Premier League last season, scoring 19.34 fewer goals than they were expected to do so. By comparison, they have underperformed their xG by only 0.15 in the current campaign.
While it’s not to say Everton’s goal issues have been completely rectified – they have still scored just seven league goals this season – but McNeil is now deployed in a position that maximises his eye for a defence-splitting pass to the benefit of the team. It’s no coincidence that the 24-year-old ranks top for key passes (21) in the Premier League this season, 14 of which have come in the four games he has started in the No 10 role.
Of the 11 shots he has managed, 10 have come when moved infield, while a brace on Saturday against Palace means McNeil has matched his goal haul from last season after only six games. Crucially his defensive work has clearly lessened with the introduction of Ndiaye on the left. This is evident in that McNeil has made the same number of tackles in the No 10 role as he did on the left flank (three), while the number of interceptions (three to nought) and fouls (two to one) have also dropped.
With that, there is now greater onus on McNeil’s ammunition for teammates – he ranks top for accurate through balls (five; he had made eight in the previous two Premier League seasons combined) and third for big chances created (six) in England’s top tier this term – or at the very least, go for goal himself. In addition Dyche has provided McNeil with more freedom to drift across the final third rather than demand the former Burnley man remain on the left flank.
As such, McNeil is now popping up in a number of different areas across the final third as teammates look to their creative star to help prise apart defences. While a bulk of the chances he has created have come from set-piece situations, the rise in the number of accurate through balls suggests that the team are benefiting from Dyche’s redeployment of McNeil.
“Playing centrally as well, being more involved in the game, has helped get my stats up,” McNeil said after the performance against Palace. Saturday’s victory against the Eagles was the first major obstacle that Everton needed to overcome if they are to enjoy a more fruitful domestic campaign.
At the very least, and even after such a testing start to the season, Everton can take solace that they appear to have improved their ability to put the ball in the back of the net, and McNeil, who has been directly involved in five of the seven league goals scored, has been instrumental in their greater finishing this time around.
With the welcoming of a Newcastle side that are conceding the third most shots per game (17.5) in the division looming, Everton fans will now view the meeting with the Magpies with optimism. And with McNeil thriving in a more central role, Everton’s chances of heading into the international break on the back of a second successive league win increases significantly as Dyche looks to navigate his side up the Premier League table.
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Source: theguardian.com
