The last 4 minutes of this game suggested to me that David Moyes didn’t bring his side to Villa Park for a draw, a result which doesn’t help either side very much. However, with his nose in front, make no mistake, Everton parked the bus in the second half of this game.

Nothing wrong with that, it’s a perfectly valid tactic, we’ve done it ourselves many a time. Actually, we tended to do it in the past against opposition that are generally recognised as “superior”, something I think Villa fans would do well to recognise. The fact that more and more teams, especially of Everton’s quality, pay us the respect of playing deep should not be underestimated – Man Utd at Wembley for instance! We’re a very good team and the opposition managers know that.

The statistics in this game bare that out. The possession share at the final whistle was 56/44 in favour of Villa, but that figure was 50/50 at half time. That’s a 12 point swing to Villa and by my math means that we had 62% possession of the second half to Everton’s 38%.

Passing

This was only the 3rd game this season that Villa completed more than 300 passes, with 306 in the 2-0 home win over Fulham and 319 in the goalless draw against West Ham at Villa Park being the other two. Naturally, when your opponents sit back and let you make lots of short passes, the completion percentage goes up – 83% in this game is considerably higher than our season average of 77%.

At 57%, the Completed Pass Share (CPS) fell into the category of being a game that Villa dominated the passing. Oddly enough, it’s the 4th game so far in 2010 that falls into the >55% share category and all four have ended in draws:-

• Stoke – 65.3% – 0-0
• Everton – 57.2% – 2-2
• West Ham – 57.1% – 0-0
• Wolves – 57.0% – 2-2

So what does this tell us? Well, for me it goes some way towards proving that we don’t have the tools to unlock sides that sit deep and let us dictate play. Or, if we do, we’re not using them. We are pacy and deadly given room to play, I’ve made the case in the past that the word ‘efficient’ describes us well, but if we can’t get behind the opposition, our tools turn out to be rather blunt.

Wingers

When I started pulling the data together for this game I had the intention of focusing on the crossing of Ash and Downing. I’ve looked at it and it would be easy to demonstrate that their crossing left something to be desired in this game. However, I’m not going to drop the graphics in here because it actually wouldn’t illustrate anything particularly enlightening on this occasion.

Downing attempted 8 crosses; 2 successful and 6 unsuccessful, Ash also attempted 8 crosses, but all of them were categorized as unsuccessful. There’s a slight unfairness about this as it was Ash’s wicked injury time delivery that caused Jagielka to divert the ball into his own net, but that is by definition an unsuccessful cross. Similarly, and a common misunderstanding, he is not credited with an assist either.

Before Tim Cahill opened the scoring in the 23rd minute, very much against the run of play, I noted that Downing and Ash had both cut inside from a much deeper position than normal and pushed into space that opened up in a central position to unleash a shot. They had enough room to effectively cross over an imaginary line bisecting the pitch from goal to goal and shoot with their stronger foot back the other way.

It was slightly different from what they normally do, perhaps it was coincidental, but Downing did it in the 8th minute and forced a save from Howard, and then again in the 19th minute, but was blocked on the second occasion. Ash did the same thing from the other side in the 21st minute, but his shot was off target. Neither of them did it again for the rest of the match.

I don’t know if this is significant, but it was just something I noticed during the game and wondered whether it was an instruction they were given at the beginning that was altered once Cahill’s goal changed the dynamic of the game.

Shooting

In addition to the shots from Ash and Downing that I’ve just mentioned, James Milner also had a shot saved early in the first half and Carlos Cuellar’s late 1st half header also forced an impressive save from Tim Howard.

James Collins had two headed opportunities, one from a corner, the other from a free kick, neither on target. Stiliyan Petrov had a shot blocked in the 15th minute, about 30 yards out. John Carew had 5 efforts; 3 off target and 2 blocked, all of them reasonably close to goal.

The fact is that there was only actually one shot on target in the second half; Gabby’s equaliser. When you consider that the injury time leveller was on target from the perspective that Tim Howard needed to stop it going in, the American keeper was actually 0 for 2 in the second half. It’s a pity for us that he didn’t have that form in the first half!

Average Position Map

Things I noticed when I was moving from the positions they were left in for the Bolton Shatshack was, firstly, that James Collins was much more advanced. That can be influenced by a higher number of corners and free kicks, but I don’t think that’s the case here, he genuinely was playing a much higher line. Which once again shows how Everton sat deeper.

Cuellar was also further up the pitch and made a few crosses which wouldn’t be overly noteworthy if it wasn’t for the fact that Stephen Warnock didn’t get forward as much as usual in this game and didn’t attempt a single cross either.

Once again, Ash and Downing will be shown in a central position because they swap wings so much. There’s nothing that I can do about that, so it’s just the vertical position that’s of interest.

On that note, Carew is more advanced than Gabby for once. That actually speaks volumes, it really does. There just wasn’t the space for Gabby to exploit, Everton really did do a great job of shackling the element of our game where we look for Carew to flick on for Gabby. That could well be a key reason that they ended up leaving with a point last night. That and gifting Tim Cahill the freedom of our box at set pieces.