Amazing how attitude and fight improve when players are given a workable and sensible structure We were so much more in control of midfield and broke through the lines much more easily
Originally I thought Bournemouth but it's actually the position map from Leicester, where we played a 3-4-3 of sorts
Me too. But IIRC at least one if those f-up's ruined a really dangerous foray. And stats like those above don't capture that. Eyeballs do however.
That wasn’t the team that played against Leicester, it was the one that started against Bournemouth. And it lines up with what we all saw and have discussed. That bottom map is definitely from Boxing Day. Edit: Now I see where the confusion is. The top graphic is the average position against Leicester, not Everton (note Holding in there, which I think was the last time we saw him). The bottom one is at Bournemouth yesterday.
Stats Zone's maps actually show exactly where all the successful and failed passes occurred on the pitch for each individual player. Regardless, I don't know of anyone advocating completely supplanting what one sees watching a match with stats --- only that stats help paint a fuller picture of what happened.
Maybe I missed it, but is no one talking about how much better David Luiz was against Bournemouth? That was the player that we all thought we were getting. Stepping up and breaking the lines and switching the ball. I think people underestimate the value of a well time switch of play. Against teams who have rigid structure it makes them all shuffle over which tires them out. Against teams with less structure in can open up gaps for runners. Well done David. He also won all his headers and was very aggressive in the air which is what we needed. More of that please. I thought torriera was very good overall, but I do remember the 2-3 times his misplayed a dangerous pass or had a bad touch and killed an attack.
+1 Not just for echoing some of our recollections of Torreira's attacking passes. But moreso for giving kudos to Luiz. I haven't been watching him closely but the fact that I'm not noticing any major mistakes on his part is a big part of the reason for praise. He had a poor start to the season but he seems to be coming good lately. More solid, more reliable. Long may it continue.