Danny Higginbotham has claimed that Everton have become too compact in their style and are suffering from a lack of width in their team.
The Sky Sports pundit has stated that teams are beginning to work out the Toffees and that it is becoming easy to play against with no players running in behind or out wide.
Ronald Koeman’s side have made a dreadful start to the new campaign and are 16th in the Premier League table during the international break.
The Merseyside club were expected to be pushing for a top-six place this season after a busy summer of spending, but have struggled to gel together so far.
Higginbotham has ripped apart the current Everton style and claimed they must change up their style to try stretch their opponents.
“Everton have plenty of good players, especially in the No?10 role,” Higginbotham wrote in the Sun. “But they have lost their way recently.
“They don’t have enough players who are stretching the opposition or running in behind the defence. Too many of their players are coming towards the ball. Everything is so compact. Teams, in their preparations, know that nobody will run behind them, so they can press up and squeeze Everton in their own half.”
OPINION
One good way for Everton to bring some width to the team is is use the likes of Nikola Vlasic, Ademola Lookman and Kevin Mirallas in their team on a more regular basis. Koeman’s position at Goodison Park is coming under major threat and results will need to improve drastically after the international break for him to save his job. They have become too easy to play against and they ran out of ideas in the final third against Burnley. Wide men should provide a spark to the attack and playmaker Gylfi Sigurdsson must be deployed in a central role and not shoved out wide.