They were great in the box. They could defend. They could block. They read danger. They smelt
danger. But I didn't want them getting caught on the halfway line.
After the early days
at Everton, we had an opportunity to roughly bed things down. My choice of system was to
play my goalkeeper, a back four but we would play one in front of the back four and the
man at the time was Lee Carsley and I'll explain in just a minute my reasons why, and four
in front and one up top. It basically looked like a 4-1-4-1. I had felt at the time that
I had really good centre halves. I had Alan Stubbs and David Weir. We had introduced Joseph
Yobo a little bit near the time but for both Alan (Stubbs) and David (Weir), I didn't necessarily
wanted them to come out of their slots, coming up the park too high so we used Lee Carsley
to do that. And how we did that is we used Lee Carsley to play in front of the centre
halves here. I had made a decision that I didn't want David Weir or Alan Stubbs coming
short with centre-forwards, coming short and leaving spaces for them to run into or also
to take them short and spin where at that time, it could expose their lack of speed
higher up the pitch. What these two centre halves were, they were brilliant as penalty box defenders.
They were great in the box. They could defend. They could block. They read danger. They smelt
danger. But I didn't want them getting caught on the halfway line which is why we introduced
Lee Carsley to play in front of the back four which I felt gave the centre halves and the
defenders the best chance of success. What we did do as a rule though, when we had the
opposition, who at this time, most of the teams were playing with four defenders - if
any of the full-backs received the ball, it was simply, your player, up to him and then
from there we would find the positions of bringing Lee (Carsley) across and trying to
stop the centre-forward from getting the ball. Carsley would deal with it to allow Alan Stubbs
or David Weir to stay in their slots and not get dragged out. So that was how we basically
set up. We also found that if the centre halves had taken the ball, and got on the ball, the
first and initial press would have come from the one centre-forward - at this time, it
might have been Kevin Campbell, Tomasz Radzinski - although he may have gone by then - maybe
Wayne Rooney, Duncan Ferguson and we would use any other midfielder who was to join the
centre-forward to put pressure on the centre halves. We were very much, I felt, a pressing
team from the early days. It was my style. I wanted my teams to always press and we hear
an awful lot about it nowadays. What you do need, if you have a pressing team, is you
need quick defenders and at this time, in this period at Everton, we didn't have the
quickest central defenders - we had good central defenders - and I had to accommodate that
by introducing a player to play in front of them to help them out.
As we evolved at Everton,
we were looking to improve the level of player but also the type of player we were bringing
into the club. The team had started to change and for me I was always someone who was very
keen on pressing. I had always wanted to win the ball back early. I think the Everton fans
demanded that as well. I think it was something they wanted. So here is a little bit about
how I thought we had evolved and how the team had come around. We had Tim Howard in goal
who we brought from Manchester United and was doing a brilliant job for us and had replaced
Nigel Martin. Across the back, by this time now we had gone and got ourself centre defenders
who I felt could play higher up the pitch, were happy to play one-v-one or two-v-two
because I think the game was developing now where your defenders had to be able to cope.
Phil Jagielka, Joseph Yobo or Sylvain Distan and before that was Joleon Lescott who I felt
were all defenders who could cope one-v-one, were quick enough. Probably the biggest difference
we had brought was the ability and the football levels we had brought when we got in Mikel
Arteta and Steven Pienaar. What we had on the other side was Leon Osman who wasn't a
winger and really Steven Pienaar wasn't a winger. What they were giving me was extra
midfield players. We developed at the time 'false wingers' where they would come in and
play in the pockets inside - both in here and into the pitch. They would be looking
to receive at times closer to the pitch to the centre-forward. Other times, they would
be joining up and narrowing the midfield up. But what it meant was the opposition had a problem
where they had to decide whether they would go with them or stay with them. But more importantly,
I was still very keen on the basics: getting my full-backs forward and in Leighton Baines,
we had one of the most attacking to become arguably one of the biggest assist makers
in the Premier League as an attacking full-back. And at that time, we had Tony Hibbert who
it wasn't his strength. His strength was defending, tackling and so that gave us a little more
of a balance on that side with Leighton Baines. I think, in the end, this partnership between
Leighton Baines and Steven Pienaar would have been very hard to improve on. The ability
to find each other with the ball, they wanted to play together, they wanted to combine together,
their combination play down the left was exceptional. It really was. What we had then was Tim Cahill
who would play behind the striker who at times could be a second striker when required. He
could also give us the feeling of a third midfield player when we were up against it.
He was ideal for this role because of his energy, enthusiasm - it was so good.
I'll show you a little bit where we could cause the opposition problems and I'll put in the
opposition back four here. We found that the full-backs had difficultly dealing with, especially
on the left hand side with Pienaar and Baines. We found we always wanted Steven Pienaar to
lock on to encourage the full-back to follow him in and play between the centre half and
the full-back. Quite often, we would find we could get Pienaar in here and if the full-back
chose not to come, we would look for the combination between Baines and Pienaar to get on the ball.
Quite often we would suck a full-back out and as I said earlier, these two had an incredible
ability to get the ball back to each other and we found we got Leighton Baines out in
free more often than not. What we then had to make sure we had was a good balance at
the back, a little bit of protection from Phil Neville but Cahill making the box who,
or Fellaini, we knew their ability in the air and the problem they could cause was exceptional.
That was the way we tried to look. The other side was very much the same but we used Osman
to try and come in - not so much to release Tony Hibbert but more to look to play passes
and combinations and play the forward player through. This had evolved and this was giving
us a great opportunity. Out of possession, we found both players made it tight, compact
in the middle of the pitch and the opposition found it really hard to play it through us.
When we got to my last season at Everton, one of the most important games was against
Manchester United. The season prior to this, we had finished above Liverpool in 2011/2012.
Now, in this year 2012/13, our team had changed slightly. On the day we had Tim Howard, we
had Tony Hibbert but we also had a young Seamus Coleman who was pushing hard and just about
breaking himself through into the team. We had Phil Jagielka and Sylvain Distin and we
had Leighton Baines as a back four. All those players were quick and could run and it gave
us a big advantage because of their speed and what they had. In the middle of the pitch
at this time, we now had Phil Neville and Darren Gibson - both ex-Manchester United
players. On the right we had Leon Osman; on the left we had Steven Pienaar, again tucking
in and giving us a little bit more compactness in the middle. And then we had Marouane Fellaini
- by this time Tim Cahill had moved on - but we knew Fellaini's height and presence, whether it
been playing as a second centre-forward or as a third midfielder, he was someone who
had great energy and was really important in both boxes. Up front we had Jelavic. We
had brought Jelavic from Rangers and he as well, at that time, was a handful and was
someone who was getting some goals for us. We came up against a very strong Man United
team. The only problem Manchester United had on this day was they had a weakest at the
back because their centre halves were either injured or suspended and Michael Carrick had
to play as a right-sided centre-back. Tactically, there was not much difference in how the teams
had set up. They were quite similar in many ways and what it was going to come down to
was if there were any weaknesses in the sides and on the day we tried to find a little weakness
in Michael Carrick not being a central defender.
During the game, we had so many opportunities.
Quite often it was Baines to Fellaini and I remember one where David De Gea made a couple
of really good saves from Leon Osman, knockdowns and shots. We had a great free-kick from Leighton
Baines just under the bar - David De Gea made another fantastic save. All night we had looked
to pull Marouane Fellaini onto Michael Carrick and were looking for diagonal balls onto his
chest, balls played into him because we knew from that position we would build-up from
the left hand side through Baines, through Pienaar coming in off the line to pick up
the bits from Fellaini's chest and then we would release Leighton Baines down the left
hand side. Ultimately, as what normally happens in football, we won it through a set piece.
On the night, our extra height made a difference. We had Michael Carrick on a corner kick from
Darren Gibson and found himself picking up Marouane Fellaini in the middle of the six-yard
box and Fellaini scored a fantastic header in the middle of the box. It was big win for
us because that season we had beaten Manchester United at home, and we eventually went onto
draw with them at Old Trafford as well that season. So for us, at Everton, there was big
signs we were getting competitive with the top teams and Manchester United were certainly
the top team or one of the top teams at the time.