We went into this game following a 1 – 1 draw against Palace where we struggled to cope with the 4 – 5 – 1 formation (Same storyline as Charlton & Norwich)
In those games any kind of hoofed clearance invariably caused us problems, and our 1st half performance was very poor, leaving us chasing the game in the 2nd half.
This time round we opted for a short passing game which led to us keeping possession and nullifying the aerial threat, which is our biggest weakness.
It was also notable that we have several players who can beat their man in one on one situations, which in turn gave the midfield time to pick out their passes, which left Everton struggling.
This was our best 1st half performance in years (2nd half wasn’t bad either) and with an average age of 24 there is still plenty of room for improvement.
What was also very noticeable is that the camaraderie amongst the players has rocketed, haven’t witnessed all those punched air salutes from the subs bench for a long long time, not for a league match anyway.
That was the good news, now it’s just the small matter of Man Utd away & Chelsea at home.