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Richard Jolly: Why Everton are so bad away from Goodison Park
After Manchester City won at Goodison Park, Frank Lampard revealed part of his strategy to stop Everton from sinking into despondency: don’t look at the league table for the next few weeks.
- Published prior to Everton's 5-0 defeat at Spurs
And given their away form, that could prove a good idea, with the Toffees likely to reside in the bottom three before their next league match at Goodison Park, on 13 March.
In all four divisions, their total of six points on the road is better only than Peterborough’s four. And since the start of September, Everton have the poorest points tally on the road of anyone.
Four of those six points came in August, with a 2-2 draw at Leeds and a 2-0 victory at Brighton. Since then, they have two points, albeit creditable ones in 1-1 draws at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge. They have two points from a possible 30, one from the last 24, none from nine.
It marks a shift in fortunes, and not merely from Rafa Benitez’s false dawn.
Everton’s home record this season, averaging 1.33 points per game, is actually up on last year (1.15). But they were sustained then by their away form, albeit in empty stadia.
They finished with 11 wins, the third most, and 37 points, behind only the Manchester clubs and Leicester. They won away at six of the top nine, in Tottenham, Leicester, Leeds, Liverpool, West Ham and Arsenal.
Perhaps their results were flattering then: Everton were only the 11th highest scorers on the road and their expected points away of 25.54 was only ninth. Now the opposite applies: the numbers suggest they are not quite as bad as the table suggests.
Their xPTS away, of 11.72, is better than six other teams’. Five others have conceded more goals than their 23 and their expected goals against (20.72) is only the seventh worst. They are 16th for shots against per away match (15.4). Defensively, they are not a bottom-three team on the road.
But only Norwich have fewer than their 10 goals and four of those came in August.
Everton have only scored four in their last seven games on the road. They have not got two in a match since the summer victory at Brighton.
Finishing is part of the problem: Everton’s average of 3.7 shots on target in away matches is the 12th best and almost identical to last season’s 3.8. Their return of 8.2 efforts per away match in open play puts them 10th.
They have had more shots on target in each of the defeats at Wolves, Brentford and Norwich, as well as the August draw at Leeds.
However, some of those attempts have been of limited quality: they recorded a lower xG than Wolves, Brentford and Norwich, while some 39 percent of their shots away from home have come from outside the box.
Those shots are also created in part by the context of the match.
Everton always have to chase games, sometimes from relatively early on. They have conceded first in nine of 10 away games since August and led for one minute, at Newcastle, when they were behind for 34. They were behind for 74 minutes at Norwich, 66 at Brentford and 62 at Wolves.
They have only scored one away first-half goal since August, and even that did not come from one of their players: it was Jamaal Lascelles’ own goal at St James’ Park.
It is part of a wider problem: Everton are the lowest first-half scorers in the division with eight and are yet to score in the first 29 minutes on the road.
It makes them the opposite of last season’s team, who scored five goals in the opening 10 minutes of away games, including at Anfield. It gave them leads to defend and a platform.
A year on, they usually have to come from behind when they do not seem configured to create or dominate. Their average possession away from home (38.9 percent) is the second lowest, their pass completion rate (73.8 percent) the fourth worst.
That is partly Rafa Benitez’s legacy and has started to change under Lampard: they had 60.7 percent of the ball against Newcastle.
But they have only mustered three shots on target in the Englishman’s two away matches in charge and their xG at Southampton, 0.30, was their lowest of the season so far.
It suggested their chances of survival this season will rest on their results at Goodison Park. Because now their difference of 0.83 points between their average return at home and away is the biggest in the division.
Last season, they had the biggest difference in the other direction, taking 0.79 more points per away game than home match.
But as they return to Tottenham on Monday, Carlo Ancelotti’s win there in September 2020 feels a long time ago.
