With Everton currently residing in the 17th position in the Premier League table, we at Soccersouls thought that we would take a look at what is going wrong at the Merseyside club. After all it is not for nothing that the club that finished fifth last season is languishing near the bottom of the table. While there are realistically many things which have gone wrong, one thing which really stuck us was Leighton Baines’ under-performance as a left back. While we dug further on Leighton Baines’ role to this disastrous start to the new campaign and we were convinced that this was a topic which needed to be covered in as much detail as possible.
First off let us start with the fact that there is an universal belief that Leighton Baines is the best left back in the Premier League and has been a long time target for clubs like Chelsea and Manchester United before they moved on to secure deals for others. While there is no denying that Baines is a fantastic player when it comes to offensive play, people tend not to look at his defensive works, which is his main prioirty. At Everton, you can see Baines attacking a lot which you would not see in a lot of other teams. However at the Merseyside club, the space left by Baines is often covered by Leon Osman which shows how much the Everton manager Roberto Martinez trusts him. The question arises when it comes to his defensive contributions and how he leaves his team vulnerable to counter attacks.
Coming to the statistics from this season while Leighton Baines has created a mammoth 16 chances from the 7 matches played so far, his average of 58% duels won against the other team’s attackers is dissapointing to say the least. Ther is no doubt that the 16 goals conceded this season has somewhat been skewered by the thrilling 3-6 loss that was played by Everton at home to Chelsea. However leaving aside that performance Everton’s defence has really looked under the cosh this season.
In fact for all the average matches that Leighton Baines had, the Chelsea one was definitely his worst. While most were praising Everton for their impressive fight in the match let us take a look at Leighton Baines’ performance that day. While the Englishman is usually on the money when it comes to taking on his opponents, it was a day when he failed both on the offensive front and the defensive front which made it even easier to spot this game as a failure for Baines. Off the 6 take ons Baines attempted, 5 were unsuccesful with the only successful take on coming against Cesar Azpilicueta in the 81st minute. It was a day where Leighton Baines did not win a single aeria duel and could effect just 1 interception in a match where Everton conceded 6 goals. Also the fact that the English International made just 1 tackle in the defensive front highlighted what a bad match Leighton Baines had.
The main reason to highlight the Chelsea match was to show a little of Baines’ performance against a top class opposition. While many hail him as the best left back in the country, this is just a glimpse of his performance against the very best opponents. By and large in almost all the matches he has played so far, he has been leaving too much space behind him when attacking and Roberto Martinez must find a way to close the gap if he wants to utilize Baines as mainly an attacking force even though he is a left back by trade.