Would you agree that the best chance was the Osman volley? It was from outside the box and even though it was really well struck and close to the post Lloris saved it. It was a difficult volley to strike and with Lloris saving it as well as he struck it I don't think he scores that one all that often.
Like I said though, I agree that we were poor in the opening 10 minutes. As did Sherwood. I just think some of the reactions have been over the top, perhaps influenced strongly by those opening 10 minutes? But I don't think we were poor for the rest of the game.
I think that if you give a Premiership footballer as much space on the edge of the box as we did Osman they'll score a lot like that. The difference between Osman and the top players is that they can do it without the space.
He certainly should have scored the one to the top left too - there was a camera angle from behind him that showed just how much space and time he had. He had a pretty large space to aim into, time to pick that shot and Lloris was unsighted behind a few defenders. He pushed the shot (for want of a better term) left of the post when he clearly tried to curl it to the right. Again, I would be very disappointed if one of our more technical players couldn't put that shot in within those parameters.
The header is more debatable - there were bodies around but it was a free header not far out. Again, we'd expect that to go in if it was us.
Yeah, let's leave that discussion, I'm sick and tired of the AVB discussions.
I'm guessing that one time was the City game? First 10 seems like a cherry picked sample though, we've been starting slowly in many games this season.
I'm only using 10 minutes because that's the data available - I was really talking about the first 6 minutes as that's the period in which Everton could easily have scored 3 goals.
It's also the period over which you'd expect the manager to have the most influence - if the players aren't following instructions 10 minutes after being sat in front of the manager then there are bigger problems than even I think there are. The two things a team should absolutely be after leaving a dressing room are motivated and organised - we were neither.
I think your conclusion that this problem is Sherwood's fault is too superficial.
It may be inaccurate to say it's Sherwood's fault, but it's a problem that's sprung up on his watch.
I think we have improved in terms of creativity, chances created and certainly in terms of goals scored. Again I think you're asking a lot if you're asking Sherwood to "fix" our problem of creativity in the final third in 10 games mid season considering when he took over. We might disagree about exactly how much trouble we were in at that time, but surely we I can't dance that the final third creativity problem was more than just a small issue.
I think Sandro returning will help sort out some of the problems we're seeing with space in front of the back 4, but at the danger of opening up the AVB can of worms there were certainly times when that space was there before Sherwood took over too. And I think you can guess the games I'm referring to.
In the end only time will tell if Sherwood can sort out some of these problems, all I'm saying is that complaining about Sherwood not fixing it yet seems harsh, particularly when in some of these areas there has been improvement.
I don't think the creativity is fixed at all. I think bringing Ade back has resulted in more goals but again, probably better that we don't get into the pros and cons of Ade as I think we've both drawn our lines in the sand regarding that. Obviously he's also committing more players forward, but I don't think the question was ever how to commit more forwards, it was how to do so without losing control of the midfield (something I think we've failed to do).
Sandro will certainly help, but again I really worry if Timmeh is either not able to get a player to screen the back four or has decided not to do so. Sandro is the best player we have for the job, but it's not as if the job is being done badly by another player, it's not being done at all.
I agree that fixing the final third creativity is a massive job. It's not something that I believe can be done quickly though - it's the most technical part of what a team does and the easiest to get wrong. The whole team must be used to the system, they all have to know each other very well and play in a manner where they almost know what the others will do at any given time. That takes a good bit of time to do - especially with the upheaval we've had and I don't think 6 months is anywhere near like the time required to do that.
