TACTICAL ANALYSIS: Everton were unable to create enough chances to threaten Xabi Alonso's porous Chelsea side in the Blues' first defeat of the season

Everton's unbeaten start to the season came to an end on Saturday (Oct 17) as the Blues succumbed to a 2-0 home defeat to Chelsea, and in truth the Blues never looked like scoring in a game that passed them by.

It was a sobering performance that saw concerns over the squad David Moyes has been left to work with rear their head again, but the Everton manager felt his side had been hard done by.

Justifiably questioning referee Paul Tierney's decision not to show Morgan Rogers a second yellow card for a reckless challenge on James Garner, Moyes also admitted he felt luck had been on Chelsea's side in key moments when speaking to the media in his post-match press conference.

"Well, we weren't at our best for most of the game," Moyes said, "but I didn't think there was a huge amount between the teams at periods. They had more because of their quality and the levels they've got.

"But when I look back at the goals, the first one I was really disappointed with but it takes a deflection and sort of rolls into Neto. We had sort of covered the cutback, even though we didn't defend well.

"Then obviously the free-kick bounces down and settles for Chelsea as well. So, I think the run of the ball went in Chelsea's favour when it was most required.

"Were they better than us? Yeah, I think so, but I didn't think they were hugely better for certain periods of game."

In many ways, this was indeed an even game. Possession was split 47.2% for the home team and 52.8% for the away side, with Everton seeing more of the ball in the second half; Everton managed 17 touches in the opposition box to Chelsea's 21 (hardly extreme figures on either side); and neither side managed to sustain attacks for prolonged periods, the Toffees managing just two recoveries in the attacking half and Chelsea zero.

But looking at the numbers that matter, there was only one side that made a serious case to win this game: Chelsea. The visitors racked up triple the shots (18) of their hosts (a season-low six) and more than triple the expected goals, while Everton managed to create just 0.13 xG from open play - a reflection of a stale attacking performance that never troubled a defence that has conceded more goals than five of the current bottom six teams in the Premier League.

What, then, went so badly wrong for Everton?

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A plan that should have worked

In fairness to Moyes, luck did play a significant part in the outcome of this game - in more ways than the manager elaborated after the final whistle.

Not only did it play a part in both goals - Pedro Neto reacting quickest to unfortunate ricochets on both occasions - but in two refereeing decisions in the first half that had a major impact on how the remainder of the game played out.

Everton, presumably under instruction from Moyes, attempted to rattle Chelsea early - a tactic that has paid dividends for various Premier League sides in the visitors' BlueCo era, with Chelsea's young side accumulating a league-high eight red cards last season.

Not only did Moyes likely expect Chelsea's players to react to Everton's physicality, but he also knew that a robust approach early in the game would get the Hill Dickinson crowd behind his team, hoping for another frenzied atmosphere after Chelsea collapsed to a 3-0 defeat in the same fixture last season.

Tierney had already blown for 15 fouls before Harrison Armstrong crunched into Josh Acheampong in the 23rd minute, a challenge for which the 19-year-old came out with the ball and the vociferous support of the home crowd, but also a booking - for what the referee described to James Tarkowski as the "intensity" of the tackle.

Admittedly, such scissor challenges are rarely allowed to fly in the modern game, but Armstrong's tackle was an earnest and successful attempt to win the ball which did not put the Chelsea defender in any serious danger - the kind of incident English referees often let go when a game is being played at the high "intensity" Tierney described.

The yellow card left Armstrong walking a tightrope until he was replaced by the rusty Christian Norgaard in the 85th minute, seriously hindering his ability to impact the game defensively and no doubt contributing to his failure to win more than two of his 10 duels, the teenager only winning back possession once during the course of the match (his midfield colleagues Garner and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall did so five times each).

The most notable incident, however, and the one that received the most post-match attention, was Rogers' challenge on Garner shortly before half time.

Tarkowski's barge on Moises Caicedo 10 minutes earlier - an off-the-ball altercation that the Everton captain willingly accepted a booking for, no doubt looking for a reaction - lit the touchpaper under Rogers, whose aggressive reaction earned the former Aston Villa star a first yellow card.

If Tarkowski was trying to get under Rogers' skin, he succeeded. When Rogers flew into the 50/50 with Garner, he was out of control - both feet off the ground and studs raised, his boot going over the ball and into the shin of his England teammate.

It was the definition of a reckless challenge and a routine yellow card, former referee Mike Dean even later arguing that it should have been a straight red, yet Tierney kept both cards in his pocket.

With VAR not permitted to intervene to recommend second yellow cards, Rogers stayed on the pitch and went on to play an instrumental role in creating the opening goal for Chelsea just minutes after half time.

Moyes' plan to bruise Chelsea psychologically had worked, and it should have seen his side play with a man advantage for the second half. But in the Premier League, you can't rely on refereeing decisions - and Moyes simply didn't set his side up well enough to challenge Chelsea 11 v 11.

Alonso's textbook tactics

Former Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso earned renown for his achievements with Bayer Leverkusen, where his wing-back system paid dividends in the Bundesliga as Jeremie Frimpong and Alex Grimaldo racked up scores of goals and assists from wide areas.

Though much has been made of Alonso's willingness to compromise at Chelsea, with the perception being that he has allowed Pedro Neto to play as a more traditional winger as opposed to a wing-back, very little has actually changed at his new club.

Though the Portuguese international took up his position on the right of a 4-4-2 block when Everton had the ball, which got Cole Palmer closer to goal and striker Joao Pedro when Chelsea won the ball back, Neto nevertheless looked for space in wider areas when the visitors were on the attack - best visualised by the similarity between his heatmap and that of Chelsea's left-back, Jorrel Hato.

Alonso's sides have typically made use of combinations in these wide areas to create chances, progressing play in wide areas and using split No. 10s - in this case, Rogers and Palmer - to draw in defenders before releasing the wing-backs on the overlap to create high-value chances through cut-backs.

Though Chelsea nominally played with a 4-2-3-1 in this game, Acheampong's more attacking role from right-back indicative of Alonso's asymmetrical approach, Hato was nevertheless under instruction to get forward in support of Rogers as Alonso's side looked to create overloads on the left.

Moyes even admitted his choice of Merlin Rohl as Everton's right winger on the day was intended to combat this strategy, though he expected a different player than Hato to line up behind Rogers on Alonso's teamsheet.

"We actually expected Pep Chavarria to play at left-back for Chelsea," Moyes told reporters after the game. "We thought that with his attacking work and what was required, the person who we thought would be best to work against him would be Merlin Rohl in that position.

"So that was the reason for that decision. As it was, he wasn't playing."

Even so, Hato posed enough of his own problems from left-back. It was his overlapping run which Rohl failed to track that directly led to Chelsea's opening goal.

Though Ainsley Maitland-Niles was beaten far too easily - winning just one of his seven duels (including zero of five ground duels) and being dribbled past twice - it was Rohl who needed to get back to provide support to the right-back, with Maitland-Niles left to defend two players, Rogers and Hato, by himself.

Moyes was in no mood to give his No. 2 the benefit of the doubt, hauling him off for Tyrique George immediately after the goal and shunting Rohl to right-back, but it was surprising to hear the Everton manager admit Alonso's selection had caught him off-guard - especially after his side were caught out by exactly the kind of combination his inclusion of Rohl had sought to prevent.

In truth, Moyes shouldn't have expected anything different from an Alonso side, yet the way Vitalii Mykolenko dropped off too far from Neto when the cut-back came in suggested Everton's defenders were caught out by the oldest trick in the former Real Madrid boss' book.

Likewise, if Everton were expecting Neto's positioning to mirror Rogers on the opposite flank, they were mistaken. The scorer of both goals found space in the box easy to come by, making more touches in the Blues' penalty area than any other player and also creating the most chances on the day (five) for either side.

One-dimensional attack finally punished

It is little wonder the game ended with possession near enough evenly split between Everton and Chelsea, with both sides preferring to build attacks on the wings rather than through the centre of the pitch.

Both sides, in fact, were heavily biased towards their own left side when on the attack: Chelsea building through the triangle of Hato, Jordan Henderson and Rogers, and Mykolenko punching vertical passes forwards for Dewsbury-Hall and Jack Grealish.

With Everton's somewhat makeshift right side fairly limited in an attacking sense, the Blues have got most of their attacking joy this season through combinations on the left, with Dewsbury-Hall drifting over to that side to combine with George and, lately, Grealish.

Grealish was influential in the first half, but none of his most notable contributions came from open play. The cross he played in for Barry's frustrating missed opportunity in the 26th minute came from the second phase of a corner routine, after Rohl had got lucky when Henderson failed to win the ball in tackling him as the winger drifted inside for a rare shot.

Grealish's bouncing effort which Emi Martinez tipped over the bar three minutes later likewise came from a set-piece routine, when Maitland Niles returned the ball wide to Dewsbury-Hall to get the cross in which was then flicked on to the No. 10.

But after a right-footed shot from Barry was comfortably saved by Martinez in the 37th minute, Everton failed to have another shot for more than 50 minutes of play until Jarrad Branthwaite's 88th-minute miss from a throw-in routine.

In open play, Everton were utterly stagnant, and the lack of central progression was glaringly obvious for the entirety of the second half.

The game was crying out for a player like Hayden Hackney, who has only featured for 150 minutes in the league this season but has created more chances per 90 than 90% of other Premier League midfielders - yet Moyes waited until the 85th minute to shake up his lacklustre midfield, only to turn to the unfit Norgaard who failed to make any kind of a positive impact.

Though it feels harsh to overly criticise Norgaard - who had played just 70 minutes of league football since New Year's Day - or Armstrong, whose lack of involvement in the game (only Barry made fewer touches among Everton starters) perhaps benefitted supporters' view of his performance given the more obvious underperformances elsewhere, neither were able to elevate a stale midfield performance.

Garner, who won just one of his three duels, is clearly a long way from being back to his best after injury, while Dewsbury-Hall - the team's primary creator - failed to complete a single pass to top scorer Barry, whose blistering pace (no striker has clocked a higher top speed in the league this season, Erling Haaland included) continues to be underutilised by Moyes' crossing-heavy tactical approach.

Against the league's lowest scorers, Tottenham Hotspur, Everton got away with it. With Chelsea probably the best team the Blues have faced so far, Saturday was a warning that they will not continue to do so against strong opposition.

And against a side coached by Alonso, who uses his central midfielders to create numerical advantages when defending wide areas, this was never going to be enough.

Lessons hopefully learned

There is no getting away from it - this was a bad day at the office for Everton, and for David Moyes. Rather than luck, it was the manager's selection, tactical setup and in-game changes (or lack thereof) that were the principal factors behind the defeat.

All managers have bad days - take Pep Guardiola in the 2021 Champions League final against this opposition for a case in point - and this is one that Moyes will (privately, at least) acknowledge he got wrong.

While the choice of Rohl on the right was justified by Maitland-Niles poor performance, a manager more assured of his pre-match conviction might have selected Jake O'Brien for a more defensive presence if concerned about his first-choice right-back's ability to cope, or started the game with Rohl there with the added attacking presence of George to force Hato/Chavarria back towards their own goal.

Equally, seeing that the Toffees were struggling to make anything stick with their usual wing play, Moyes might have acted sooner in introducing a more progressive central midfielder, either in place of Dewsbury-Hall or by sacrificing Garner or Armstrong for added attacking output.

It is hard to escape the feeling that Norgaard was introduced to get minutes in his legs ahead of a potential role off the bench against his former club - but that now looks unlikely with there clearly a lot of work ahead between the Norwegian midfielder and full fitness.

Ultimately, you have to give Moyes credit for getting good levels out of a frankly inadequately-equipped squad over the opening six games of the season, but some lateral thinking may be required to get more variety out of what is becoming an increasingly predictable Everton attack.

Ironically, the Blues may be better-equipped to deal with their upcoming trip to the Emirates this weekend - a game that, with Arsenal struggling to reliably create opportunities of their own, could well be decided by fine margins.

But up against the best defence in the league, we need to see a lot more from the Blues going forwards.