On the face of it, the task in front of Everton this summer appears relatively clear cut: avoid a fourth successive relegation battle.
Last season was particularly turbulent at Goodison Park, with two points deductions for separate profit and sustainability rule (PSR) breaches threatening to undermine the progress made on the pitch under manager Sean Dyche.
Off the field, 777 Partners’ takeover bid steadily unravelled, adding to the general sense of uncertainty around the future of the club.
But Everton survived again and there is optimism about the steps being taken on the pitch under Dyche. Without their deductions, they would have been a point off the top half and their best finish since the 2020-21 season.
So what next? And how can Dyche’s side push on despite so much uncertainty off the pitch after the Friedkin Group pulled the plug on their takeover?
The Athletic caught up with Everton’s assistant manager Ian Woan and chief analyst Matthew Hawkes during their five-day pre-season trip to Ireland to find out how preparation for the new season is going.
Pre-season preparation
The Everton squad did double sessions every day but one of their training camp at Carton House in County Kildare last week.
But there were team bonding activities, too. Players were given Wednesday afternoon off and were able to choose from an array of activities including golf, clay pigeon shooting, padel and fishing. Most staff, meanwhile, headed to do the Guinness Storehouse tour in nearby Dublin.
On Thursday, it was back to the grind, with the squad running more than 13 kilometres before Friday’s 3-3 draw against Sligo Rovers.
There is a clear focus on fitness at this stage, but pre-season affords coaching staff the opportunity to explain to new signings, such as Iliman Ndiaye and Tim Iroegbunam, what is expected in Dyche’s setup.
Woan, left, and Hawkes are a key part of Dyche’s staff (Tony McArdle/Everton)
Woan: We’re in the hands of the sports scientists for the first month because the players are given bespoke fitness instructions while they’re off. They’re on a journey to full fitness, so we bend to the sports scientists. The last few weeks, when we’re shaping the team and the personnel, it comes back our way.
Some new faces have come into the squad, so it’s getting to know them and blending them in with the rest of the group.
Hawkes: We’re doing a bit of work with the new players on how we want to play, how we want to press and build up. We’ll show them physical data of what the league demands of that position and metrics of players who played there for us last season, saying ‘this is the minimum’.
Woan: It’s Saturday to Saturday during the season. You (points to Hawkes) will be post-match with the gaffer on the Monday and, in the run-up to the next Saturday, we’ll all have watched five or six games. By Thursday, we’re delivering to the players. It’s probably about four presentations we put together for the players. On the Saturday, it’s set plays. There’s a lot of interaction with the analysts.
He (Dyche) has been pigeonholed as a certain type of manager and it couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s forward-thinking; a lot of analysis and psychology.
Hawkes: We have two analysts, but we’re replacing one (after Alex Scanlon left last season). On the Sunday and Monday, I’m working with the gaffer on the debrief. The other will be working on the opposition. Me and the manager probably spend the whole of Monday morning watching the game back together. He’ll ask different questions based on the opposition and what we can do differently.
The post-match can be different each week. I have a really good relationship with the manager and we communicate over the Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Woan: We don’t usually call players out on their own — we might take them to one side and give them feedback if we need to. Like it or not, players nowadays don’t like getting called out. They don’t want to speak in a group.
You want to see it through their eyes first. We always give them the floor to let us know their thought process. We’ll have a strong opinion, too, so hopefully we meet somewhere in the middle.
Woan speaks to the players in Ireland (Tony McArdle/Everton)
Dyche is not dogmatic, as his long-time assistant Woan explains. They have been working together since 2012 at Burnley and their approach is often tweaked depending on the opposition.
But they are aware of data that shows they are at their best when they have less of the ball. Last season, Everton won just one game where they had over 50 per cent possession…
Woan: There’s no brand for us, we need to win any way we can. We’re not saying, ‘We need 500 passes’ or ‘This is the way we play regardless’.
Hawkes: Physical metrics are big. Normally when we hit a certain marker, we kind of knew how we’d play.
Woan: It’s affecting the top third with as much quality as we can. As basic as it is, it’s so strong (the correlation) when we outrun opposition.
Normally we’re at our most successful when it’s under 300 passes. We’re not overplaying; we’re getting it forward and asking questions. Within that, you want to play forward — between the lines and down the sides — with quality.
Set-piece focus
Only Arsenal scored more set-piece goals than Everton last season, with defender James Tarkowski a particular threat in the air.
So what are the reasons for their success? And how can they stay ahead of the competition?
Woan: It’s personnel. We’re a powerful group with some strong characters who want to go and head it. Tarks is our leader there.
We go through it a lot with them, but once they go over the white line, you can’t influence it.
Tarks is willing to wait and say, ‘You go there, you go there’. It’s like the goal against Liverpool (he references a viral clip from the game where Tarkowski tells Dominic Calvert-Lewin: ‘I’ll block them and you f****** head it’).
Sealing it at the Street End 🙌
🦋 @CalvertLewin14 pic.twitter.com/VrRu7vRFox
— Everton (@Everton) April 24, 2024
Hawkes: From that, you get the buy-in from players. Even as staff, when we get a corner you think, ‘Yeah, we’re going to score’. So then it’s almost like the fans and players feel that.
Woan: We’re on the sidelines and see how much of a flap the opposition get in, jumping up and pointing. We always say to the lads that, if the ball is on the money and we get the blocks right, nobody is going to stop them.
The opposition can organise anything they want, but they’re not stopping Tarks. He’s a super powerful boy but there’s a real desire with him to get that first contact.
Hawkes: The delivery is key.
Woan: Yeah, Dwight’s (McNeil) is superb. We do change them (set pieces) up, but our staple will always be the back post. Create some kind of issue with the goalkeeper, get a block on their strongest header — (Virgil) van Dijk for example.
We always have that as a go-to, but if the lads highlight another area like the front post, we’ll have that as well. There might be a bespoke corner for a specific team.
Hawkes: Defensively last season, we changed the shape a number of times. We put an extra zonal man or altered the line.
Woan: Teams tried to isolate us around the edge of the box because of the way we set up, but we’re always reluctant to take players off posts. We think we can defend the box if we have numbers in there. The percentage of short corners against us was way higher than for anyone else.
We’re always tweaking it and that always depends on personnel and size. We had lots of big, solid lads and that dictated how we set up.
Hawkes: The best teams go, ‘We know we’re good at it and it’s up to you to stop it’.
Across the board, we’ll watch a lot of video and then go to the coaches and manager and say ‘Should we have a look at this because maybe they’ve got a weakness or certain strength?’ We use the video or the data to ask, ‘Should we tweak the press or build-up?’.
Woan: There are little specifics we’re looking at. Something we might have to improve is wide free kicks.
The amount of information from the lads is incredible — all the corners the opposition have faced and where they’ve lost first contacts and heat maps.
Hawkes has been with Everton for seven years, working his way up from a role in the academy to lead performance analyst at first-team level in 2021. He worked with Blackpool and the Trinidad and Tobago national team.
He is in regular dialogue with Dyche’s staff on matchday, communicating with first-team coach Steve Stone through an earpiece.
It gives the coaching staff an important extra pair of eyes and the conversation continues at half-time, where feedback to players — individual and collective — is essential…
Woan: He (Hawkes) is a direct line to Stoney. I don’t have an earpiece because it drives me up the wall. I already have the gaffer barking at me.
Hawkes: It’s for set pieces, open-play stuff and maybe refereeing decisions. I don’t try to speak to Stoney all the time, but normally it’s that first 10 minutes on how we’re doing in the different areas. Alex (Scanlon) would be sat next to me last season checking the set plays and how we’re doing with our markers.
At half-time, we’ll have a discussion about how we all felt. Sometimes Steve will say to me, ‘The manager has noticed this, so can we have a look at it’? We probably have three minutes there.
Woan: The gaffer is normally relaxed at half-time. We go into the coaches’ room for five minutes normally, then will have a chat about what we all think. We’ll have a look at the screens and see what we need to tweak, if anything.
Iroegbunam goes up against Beto, left, and Jenson Metcalfe, right, in training in Ireland (Tony McArdle/Everton)
He (Dyche) will go in and do more of a generic, ‘This is what we need to do better’. Then we will go round individually, usually on the laptops.
Hawkes: If it’s a collective thing, we’ll show it on the big screen. If it’s an individual thing, it’ll be Steve or Ian taking the laptop and speaking to players.
Woan: If you don’t show them a visual, players can be quite disbelieving.
Lessons from last season and next steps
Last season was draining for all associated with Everton as Dyche and his team battled to overcome two separate points deductions and constant takeover speculation.
There is a belief now that the group is stronger for that adversity…
Woan: Nothing will ever compare to the Bournemouth game (at the end of the 2022-23 season). I never want to go through that again, but the strength of this group for what they went through last season was incredible.
The way they galvanised and had that bunker mentality: ‘Screw you, it’s us against everyone else’. It’s such a tight group.
Hawkes: That week after the first deduction was incredible. Forest, Newcastle, Chelsea, Burnley.
There’s a clip in the Newcastle game that really shows what we’re about. It was some time in the first half and we were pressing. We wanted to press them but knew they had technical players and managed to play through the press. Every single player sprints back the entire length of the pitch and then Tarky does this block.
I remember the day after, we did a post-match meeting and showed the goals. The gaffer showed that clip at the end and was like, ‘This is what it’s about’.
Woan: We want to keep improving. Take the deductions out and there’s definite improvement in every aspect, despite all the setbacks.
We had a spell in the middle of the season with a tough run of games and results, but the way the team stuck together was our proudest moment.
Everton had the fourth-best defensive record in the league last season but struggled in attack, with only relegated Sheffield United scoring fewer goals, and went 13 games without a win at one point.
The hope is that Ndiaye, the Senegal forward bought from Marseille for around £15m, can add a new dimension in attack. But there will be a focus on getting more from existing members of the squad…
Ndiaye, left, has impressed Woan already (Tony McArdle/Everton)
Woan: We saw the clips of what he (Ndiaye) was about when we were trying to bring him in, but you don’t get a proper feel until you see them close up.
What I’ve seen is his willingness to want to get on the ball and drive forward to affect a game. He’s confident on the ball and wants to work off it, which is a necessity in our team as we spend a lot of time without it.
It looks like you can play him in the wide areas, in the 10, so there’s competition across the line now where we were a bit short before. He’s got a calm finish on him. There’s no fear to score a goal, which is always nice to see.
Hawkes: Seeing what he did at Sheffield United in that central area, driving forward, he can definitely handle the ball.
Woan: We were excellent defensively last year. Great shape. But you can’t keep putting pressure on your back four and goalkeeper to be nigh-on perfect.
We need to be more effective in the final third and it’s on us to find coaches need to find ways to help that.
(Top photo: Tony McArdle/Everton)
