Our usual pre-season match reporter – Karl – is still writing up his report, so good old Mike has drummed up something for us to mull over.

Musings: what can we learn from the friendly VS Preston North End
Mike Brandon

It seems a perfect combination – celebrating a birthday by going to watch Everton, but sods law dictates that your going to be in for a dull affair that will be nothing to write home about. Ironically then, I am writing home about the experience, or rather providing a few notes from a game that I generally spent more time admiring the colour of the sky (it was a nice shade of lilac) than watching the hoof exchange on the pitch. The first point is that the FollowEverton (forum members) representatives were a noisy lot, and were part of the top corner that almost single handedly represented Everton’s crowd volume, notable more so from the inability for the Preston fans, no doubt daunted by the sheer number of blues who had shown up, to respond. That said they had dealt a minor insult by making us sit in the ‘Bill Shankly Kop’. Here are what I can make form the scribblings of my notebook;

Overview: Preston North End 0 – Everton 1 – Tuesday July 22nd, Deepdale

The game began lively enough, Baxter involved early on and almost scored from a sublime free kick. Jagielka went one better moments later with a powerful header that put Everton in front before the clock had hit double figures. Cue Everton’s natural ability to go for a lie down once in front, and despite a heavy showing of youths, it seems to be a pre-requisite that if you were a blue shirt switch off when leading. A significant point of note was our weakness on the right. And before we blame Neville, the real problem came when under threat. Nobody was closing Preston down when they attacked down the left, allowing them to come very deep, and when possession was finally regained we looked clueless down that side. There was some positive play however, when the teams weren’t exchanging long balls, we did link play up well, however our 4-5-1 formation struggles without a strong striker, a role Agard could not fulfil, moreover without a powerful attacking midfielder to feed play in front of the box, it was like trying to pass it through a brick wall. Of course you can never really tell from these games, especially given that outside the back four, it was all non-first team players, however the point that we need new faces was made, as some of these players are not ready for full on PL football.

Player by player

1 Turner Lacked awareness in the box and repeatedly made errors that would be extremely costly in a competitive game. Must have been watching Rustu at Euro 2008 as his punches seemed to occur for no reason and begged for a return volley.

2 Neville At the end of the game he got the teams together like a true captain. During the game he treated the ball like a grenade and got rid of it as quick and far as possible, and like a grenade he aimed it squarely into the maximum amount of opposition players. Allowed Preston to cut in from their left too often.

3 Valente Was certainly a present force on the left and ensured that our CB’s didnt have to come and help but looked like his touch has left him when in possession. Certainly good cover as a third LB option however.

4 Rodwell Playing the holding midfielder, he looked strong, was quick to react and work tirelessly and dogging our opponents and was let down by his team mates when Preston were allowed to play ‘piggy in the middle’ with him on the edge of our box! My pick for MOTM, we cant bring him in as a Carsley replacement yet, but he will give us reasons to be in the first eleven next term.

5 Lescott Solid and reliable in the central defender role, but in a game that was never really on fire, neither was he.

6 Jagielka Proved why he must be on the team sheet every time next term. Never really had anything dangerous to deal with but was decisive in his box work when necessary. Scored the solitary goal too.

7 Van der Meyde For the first ten minutes he looked like the player of our dreams. Brilliant touches, dangerous strikes and cutting straight across the Preston lines. However as the game dropped off so did he, and he never looked like being able to take it by the throat. Looked poor on defence too. Still, he will make good cover next term.

8 Gosling Made some decent recoveries but when a players best quality is his ability to correct a mistake its not a recipe for success. Not ready for the PL as at this stage he can only learn from his mistakes, and mistakes will cost us points. Plus he spent most of the game doing some form of ballet performance.

9 Jutkiewicz I have the feeling that maybe we were playing 4-4-2 but Lukas dropped off of Agard. Anyhow he worked the hardest of any players on the pitch and covered some serious ground. Could he last a PL 90 though as he looked out of it by the end.

10 Agard I’d love to be more positive or insightful but he was garbage! Next.

11 Baxter Never really got into the game, and looked sorely lacking when defending or counter attacking as our right side looked dangerously exposed. Yes he’s only young, but it doesn’t take away the fact that his performance wasn’t up to anything.

We also saw Mikel Arteta who made a box-splitting pass then joined in with the jog around that was the game.

MOTM – Jack Rodwell
Special Mentions – Jagielka and Jutkiewicz and we got to see Alan Irvine again!

Formation – something like:
—————————–Agard—————————–
——————-Jutkiewicz———————-X———
—–Gosling————————————Baxter——
—————————Rodwell—————————–
—–Valente—–Lescott——Jagielka—-Neville [c]—
—————————-Ruddy——————————

X = weak point