Cardiff vs Everton – postmatch

Cardiff added one more point to the three won against Man City with a hard earned 0-0 draw and first clean sheet of the season against Everton, and yet again it was the defensive mettle of the players being tested. The average positions of players sums up the match, with no Cardiff player having a position further forward than a few paces inside the Everton half. Five Cardiff players were mainly within the third of the pitch on their side of the halfway line, with Everton having seven outfielders camped in the same zone. As a result, Everton did not have space behind the Cardiff back four to create clear cut chances; that there was no space turned out to not be that much of a problem for Everton as they had little pace in their attack, at least until the introduction of Kone and Deulofeu, anyway,

In my preview, I noted that Jelavic tended to drop back to support the midfield, leaving Mirallas as Everton’s most advanced player (as can be seen in the above graphic) and this was the tactic that Everton used again – although Mirallas dealt with the three chances that came his way quite poorly. Cardiff were able to restrict Everton to taking a majority of their 13 goal attempts from outside the area – youngster Ross Barkley managed the most shots, but they were all from range and blocked. In fact, Everton’s shooting as a whole was quite poor, landing just three on target, two of these tame efforts from far out. The other was Everton’s best chance, a Jelavic header which took a deflection and came close to catching out Marshall – only an exceptional reaction from the keeper kept it out, shifting his body weight with great agility. The graphic below shows Everton’s shots and how far out they were taken – blue is on target, red is off target and grey is blocked.

Everton’s other great chance was a Baines run which ended with a Medel slide tackle that did not make contact with the ball; at least not last according to the referee who gave a goal kick. Had the tackle been made at Goodison Park rather than yards from a stand packed with loud Cardiff fans, a penalty may well have been awarded. In truth, as Robbie Savage spotted on Match of the Day, Baines could probably have skipped the challenge in the same way he had skipped a previous one in the same move but elected to take the hit. You win some, you lose some, but let’s be honest, players who go to ground under a challenge usually win the call. Cardiff fans will have to remember this the next time a penalty box decision goes the other way.

Fellaini, in what would turn out to be his last appearance in an Everton shirt, and partner Osman won the midfield battle; both shared the highest number of attempted tackles (seven) and made 11 recoveries (the same as Medel/Gunnarsson managed with a lot more ball to chase) and predictably Fellaini won all 6 aerial duels. Considering that Everton had so much of the ball, it is striking that these two defensive midfielders outperformed their opposite numbers. The loss of Fellaini’s physical presence in front of the back four will be noticeable. Fellaini sent most of his passes to the left flank and indeed Baines and Pienaar both received the most passes and had the most touches in the opposition half and final third of all players on the pitch- Everton primarily used their left flank but not successfully, only having around a 30% success rate with their crosses. In contrast, Coleman received little support on the right flank with Mirallas looking unwilling to help out his partner.

Despite being overrun, Cardiff still could have snatched a victory. In the opening minutes of the second half. a direct run from Kim on the left flank almost led to a goal but his pullback went behind Campbell and Bellamy. Bellamy also had a chance from a Kim throughball but overran the ball when trying to round the keeper while Whittingham went close with an inswinging corner that Howard was not expecting to come so close to the goal.  These chances will continue to be few and far between if Cardiff are to play the same stifling tactic in their future games. Hull away may be an opportunity to be more expansive than the following match, Spurs at home, but will Mackay try and avoid what would be a damaging defeat rather than go for the win? The attitude of the wide players will probably be the key to Cardiff’s policy – I’ll come back to this in more detail with a preview closer to the match.

Coming forward, Kim was Cardiff’s most likely player to create something, having had more touches in the opposing half and final third than any other Cardiff player. When Cardiff have attacked, they have not tended to favour the flanks or the middle (unlike Everton, who predominantly use the flanks) which can be interpreted in a couple of ways. Being positive, we could say that Cardiff are varying their attacks which makes it a lot harder for the opposition to set themselves up to deal with it (whereas Cardiff could concentrate on making sure the flanks were well manned to push back Everton).

I think it’s more likely that the attacks have come as a result of opportunism and exploiting space that has suddenly appeared during the run of play. While it is encouraging that Cardiff have the players that can do this (generally through one of Kim’s direct runs or Whittingham’s passes), it means that Cardiff haven’t yet played a match where they are able to put sustained pressure on the opposition in order for an attacking tactic to be employed or defined. This will no doubt come in time, as they prepare for matches where they don’t expect to be on the backfoot, but the fixture list has not been kind in the opening matches. Maybe it’s a measure of Cardiff’s standing in the division that they don’t look to have what appears to be a nice run, but what is most encouraging is that, despite this, they have started the season with excellent performances and picked up points.

Images courtesy of http://www.fourfourtwo.com/statszone (would have been more but the site has crashed!)