Goodison Tactics: Richarlison & Rodriguez link-up shows Everton the way to solve DCL problem
The problem of replacing Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been a great source of frustration for Everton but Richarlison and James Rodriguez might just be the answer.
The duo formed a strike partnership of sorts as the Blues lined up in a 5-3-2 formation against Liverpool on Saturday with the Brazilian tasked with doing the running while the latter played creator.
Boy did they deliver as they powered past their Merseyside rivals to record a first victory at Anfield since 1999.
It has been a fairly frustrating season for Richarlison with a number of near-misses contributing to a Premier League goal tally of just three in 19 appearances heading into the Merseyside derby, but it didn’t take long for him to add to this.
As you can see below Richarlison is in an offside position as the ball is lofted into the path of Rodriguez but it does not take long for him to sense the opportunity.
With Jordan Henderson and Ozan Kabak in the Reds backline, Carlo Ancelotti will have been aware that they do not possess the pace to deal with balls in behind and that is probably why he elected to operate with Rodriguez as a support striker just behind Richarlison.
It took less than three minutes for the Colombian to find a pocket of space and deliver a devastating through ball to open the scoring.
The image below shows Richarlison on the half-turn as soon as the 29-year-old has got the ball out of his feet and his open body position allows him to race onto the ball.
He knows this is a simple task for Rodriguez and he capitalised to run onto it and fire past Alisson in the Liverpool net.
That was as good as it got in terms of actual output but there were further signs that this could be a blossoming partnership.
Below you can see Richarlison again on the half-turn and looking to stretch the Liverpool defence as soon as his creator-in-chief gets on the ball.
Rodriguez opts to for the safer ball to Digne this time but we think he might have tried the killer ball had the Blues not been winning and looking to regain some possession.
Richarlison also played a major role in the build-up to Everton’s second goal to show he doesn’t just need Rodriguez as he rolled his marker (Nat Phillips) before sprinting away into the distance.
This showed that he has both parts to his game – the ability to use his body strength and hold off defenders and the explosiveness to get away set the Blues on the counter-attack.
This opened up a one-v-one which resulted in him slotting the ball into Calvert-Lewin who won a penalty that Gylfi Sigurdsson duly converted.
Calvert-Lewin is clearly Everton’s main man and the Toffees struggled without him in the side v Man City and Fulham in prior games as they lacked a focal point up top.
Richarlison was left isolated in those games with the distance between himself and the midfielders too large.
But on the evidence of Saturday night utilising him just ahead of Rodriguez could be the key to solving the DCL issue for Everton.
In other Everton news, see our exclusive interview with Kevin Campbell on the importance of the Blues securing a new stadium.