Match date: 19 January 2014

Pepe Mel’s first game on the touch line for West Brom as they host Everton. Both sides have been a bit difficult to beat as they now have 19 draws between them. Roberto Martinez’s side continue their push for a top 4 side and, with a win, could have go above Liverpool who drew Aston Villa earlier in the weekend.

Martinez sets out Everton in a 4-2-3-1. In the absence of Ross Barkley, who has been terrific for the Toffees this year, Leon Osman comes into the team, but it was Kevin Mirallas who was most often operating through the centre of the pitch in support of Romelu Lukaku. For West Brom, Pepe Mel opts for a 4-4-2 and has stuck with Nicolas Anelka despite the calls for Zoopla, West Brom’s sponsor, to have the French striker dropped following his controversial goal celebration that has seen him charged by the FA.

Pressing

West Brom’s pressing was good throughout the match as they tried to limit Everton’s ability to play out of the back, but the opening 20 minutes set the tone. Whenever Everton would work the ball into the wide areas in their defensive third, whether it were one of the full backs or one of the centre backs as they split, the West Brom players would use this as a trigger to press, often forcing the ball to be played hopefully to Lukaku or back to Howard. Below you can see an example of West Brom’s pressing trigger as Distin has the ball near the side line with Anelka forcing him back. Distin plays the ball to Barry in this instance, who has a defender quickly closing him down.

West Brom’s pressing meant that Everton were forced to play a much more direct game than they have under Martinez. As Everton worked the ball into the wider areas of the pitch, Lukaku had to make those lateral runs across West Brom’s back line to give the Everton defender under pressure an option to play the ball to a target player. Unfortunately for West Brom, this is exactly how Everton scored their goal. Distin had time on the ball and began dribbling forward, but wide, which meant that a West Brom player was certain to press him. Anelka came over, but by that time, Lukaku had drifted across the West Brom line, dragging Jonas Olsson with him, which opened up the space for Mirallas, who was able to get on the goal side of Lugano, to run into following Lukaku’s flick.

Everton’s pressing, a staple of the type of football that Martinez has brought to the Merseyside club, was good in the first half as well. West Brom struggled to play the ball into their central midfielders because of the pressing, but perhaps more tellingly because of Everton’s numerical advantage in midfield. When West Brom possessed the ball in their defensive third, Osman and McCarthy would pick up Yacob and Morrison, meaning that Gareth Barry was fairly free defensively, allowing him to shield the back four and cut out passing lanes from the centre backs to the West Brom strikers. Anelka would drop off of West Brom’s front line, but only once the ball was played into one of the players in midfield. On counter attacks, he would drift into wider areas with Everton’s full backs higher up the pitch and he found often as West Brom were able to get the ball into their central midfielders more frequently on counter attacks with the transitions of Mirallas and Osman opening up more passing lanes as Everton looked to get their midfield shape.

Anelka v Mirallas

While these two players never really came up against one another, their roles in their respective sides were fairly similar. In the absence of Ross Barkley, Mirallas was given a much freer role to play in, one that is usually given by Martinez to Barkley. Mirallas has had a very good season under Martinez so far and has played in the wide areas in most of Everton’s matches. His pace and trickery has allowed him to excel in these positions. Against West Brom, in a freer role, he was able to exert much more of an influence on the match as he was able to link up very well with Lukaku throughout the match, including Everton’s goal, which came from a flick from Lukaku and an inside run from Mirallas. He was able to drift into the middle with much more freedom and with Leon Osman as part of Everton’s midfield three, he could do so without Everton being caught out when Steven Reid came forward to support Zoltan Gera.

In relation to that, Mirallas’ defensive work was poor throughout the match, as he put in poor challenges. This meant, as mentioned above, that Osman had to both pinch into the middle and shuffle out to the left throughout the match to give Everton a numerical advantage in central midfield as well as a defensive presence on the left.

For West Brom, Anelka played in a few different roles, but like Mirallas, was a key part to most of West Brom’s good attacks. When West Brom were able to get the ball in the middle third of the field, Anelka would drop in, dragging an Everton centre back, usually Distin, with him. This allowed a good amount of space to open up behind him and Anelka was able to exploit that space with a few clever balls to either Morrison running from deep beyond Anelka, or to his strike partner Vydra, who made good runs in behind the Everton defense for Anelka to pick him out.

Anelka was clever with his movement during his time in a forward role. When he wasn’t dropping into midfield, he would look to get on the outside of Distin and Jagielka, as the Everton full backs pushed up the pitch to support their attacks. Once West Brom won the ball back and looked to counter, they could use Anelka in the wide areas and he was able to get 1 on 1 opportunities with both centre backs at different times throughout the match. Again, Vydra’s movement in support of Anelka’s positioning made West Brom dangerous.

Following Anicabe’s introduction into the match, Anelka did not look as comfortable up top. There was a clear lack of cohesion between the two strikers as Anicabe would check to the ball, and offered an option on the ground as well in the air, but the duo lacked chemistry as Anelka failed to anticipate opportunities

Mel’s Changes

Pepe Mel made a change at half time, taking off Vydra, who had a decent first half and linked up well with Anelka, for former Everton striker, Victor Anichebe. At that point the shape of the West Brom side stayed about the same, but as mentioned above, there was a clear lack of definition in the roles of Anichebe and Anelka when both were playing up top. There was a moment where Anichebe was visibly annoyed that Anelka had not run in behind him after the former Everton made won a flick on.

The second change that the new man in charge made was bringing on Mulumbu for Gera, which changed West Brom’s shape from a fairly traditional 4-4-2 to something of a lopsided 4-5-¼-2-3-1 with Anelka in the midfield on the right, but still higher than the rest of the midfield line, while Mulumbu and Yacob played a bit deeper than Morrison. This change, although it allowed West Brom to match up with Everton in midfield, pushed West Brom a bit deeper as they now only had Anichebe to pick out and struggled to support Anichebe, allowing West Brom to get bodies around him quickly. Although, this wasn’t the case just before West Brom’s goal. Following a corner, Albion were able to win the ball high up the pitch and play the ball into Anichebe’s feet in the penalty area. Brunt was able to make a supporting run, took over the ball from Anichebe, and got a cross into Lugano who had stayed up after the corner to head Brunt’s cross in.

The final change for Mel was Berahino on for Anelka. The shape remained fairly the shape, still a lopsided 4-5-¼-2-3-1, but with Brunt moving to the right and Berahino acting as the higher player, like Anelka was, just now on the left side of West Brom’s attack.

Conclusion

Neither side played well enough to really get all three points. West Brom were positive in the opening 45 minutes as they played some decent football led by Anelka and they pressed Everton well, disrupting the Merseyside club’s play. Everton were still able to use Lukaku’s versatility to get a break through, however, and didn’t allow West Brom to create clear cut chances.

Mel will be happy with his team and Lugano will be pleased that he was able to make amends for his error that allowed Everton to score.