Under other circumstances, it would have been the most obvious of statements.
“We are a team that can defend and keep clean sheets,” Everton manager Roberto Martinez said after Tuesday’s loss to Swansea City in the English League Cup.
You would assume so. Everton finished fifth last season and sides do not tend to end up in the top quarter of the Premier League without displaying the ability to stop opponents from scoring.
As Martinez said: “We kept 15 clean sheets last season. It is in our DNA, the work rate that we have as a team.”
So perhaps Everton, with the same personnel, somehow have different DNA this season.
They kick off in today’s Merseyside derby with the worst defensive record in the Premier League. It might be the wrong time to face a side who scored seven goals in 180 minutes against them last season, too.
Everton have yielded 17 goals in their first seven games in all competitions, their worst start defensively since Mike Walker’s Everton let in 18 at the beginning of the 1994/95 season, which marked the end of his ill-fated reign.
Martinez’s entertainers have at least chipped in with 13 scores at the right end. They have produced drama, playing better than their results suggest.
They should have beaten Arsenal and Crystal Palace at Goodison Park. Late concessions – seven of those 17 goals have come after the 75th minute – have changed results and perceptions.
Despite the manager’s characteristic confidence, Everton’s problems pose the question of whether clean sheets are in the DNA of a Martinez team.
His Wigan Athletic side conceded 79 in the 2009/10 Premier League season, for instance, and their successors surrendered 73 in the 2012/13 campaign.
David Moyes’s Everton tended to be more frugal and Martinez inherited an excellent defence, but one possessing an ageing heart.
Rebuilding and reorganising always represented one of his bigger long-term tasks. He has to determine if this is just a blip or a sign of decline.
Captain Phil Jagielka turned 32 in August, Sylvain Distin will celebrate (or perhaps ignore) his 37th birthday in December and goalkeeper Tim Howard is 35.
Each has been fallible. Since returning from injury in April, Jagielka, who endured a difficult World Cup, has not recaptured the form he found beforehand.
Perhaps tellingly, Everton’s only clean sheet of the campaign, at West Bromwich Albion, came when John Stones, 20, stood in for Distin; the Englishman has been earmarked as the long-term successor.
Perhaps the changing of the guard will have to be brought forward. With Seamus Coleman an injury doubt, Stones could be required at right-back and the old firm will remain the central defensive partnership.
Distin said he believes that Everton have been punished for every mistake. What he did not say was that some of those errors are not the defenders’ responsibility.
Howard blundered twice for goals against Palace. For the second successive season at Goodison Park, the Londoners scored three goals from as many shots on target, which Martinez deemed “spooky”.
When winning on Merseyside, Chelsea struck six times from eight chances. The statistics may be a deceptive indication of the back four’s performances, because Howard is not making many saves.
Martinez has accepted the American is not at his best, but, with a typical display of loyalty, backed him to return to past glories.
The reality is that the demands have changed at the back for Everton under the Spaniard. Leighton Baines and Coleman form arguably the most attacking full-back partnership in the division.
Martinez has reinvented them as a tactically bolder team, imbued with more passing principles. They can score, but when it has gone wrong – as in January’s 4-0 loss at Anfield or August’s 6-3 thrashing by Chelsea – it has gone very wrong.
Everton arrive at Anfield, where Moyes managed many a clean sheet but never a win, wondering if the Scot’s defence can reprise their defiance of the past and prove Martinez right.
sports@thenational.ae
