Goodison Tactics: Laporte weakness can be exposed in Everton v Man City Cup clash
Manchester City have proven to be a formidable opponent this season but they are not infallible and Everton can cause them issues on Saturday.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side host Pep Guardiola and his Premier League table-toppers at Goodison Park in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup with a trip to Wembley the prize for the winners.
With Everton trophyless since 1995 fans will be desperate for a big showing from the side here to end the nightmare run and while games do not come much tougher we think there is an area of weakness to exploit.
Aymeric Laporte had a sensational start to life in Manchester after his 2018 transfer from Athletic Bilbao but a startling decrease in one area of his game shows Laporte is struggling to reach his standout season of 2018/19.
During that campaign he won 67.1% of his defensive duels but this has dropped down to 58.7% [Wyscout] this season after an injury-hit 2019/20 and at Goodison News we have picked out some deficiencies in his game of late.
The first example shown below is from a 5-2 win against Southampton on March 10 where Laporte conceded a penalty after tugging the arm of Jannik Vestergaard during a corner.
The Danish defender is an imposing figure and the City player could not handle his sheer physical presence and resorted to underhand tactics to prevent a shot at goal, something which failed and led to a blatant penalty.
With Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the Blues ranks expect him to offer a similar threat to that of Vestergaard and dominate Laporte in the air.
This next example is from the south-coast side’s second goal of the evening.
Below you can see Laporte circled and while there does not seem to be any immediate danger he is actually rather sluggish in pushing up the pitch and imposing pressure on the opposition’s midfield as Guardiola usually requests from his defenders.
An unfortunate flick from his own teammate then puts his side in a perilous position as Nathan Redmond gains advantage of the ball.
The ball is past Laporte and he is unable to have any effect but if he was quicker to step up then he would have easily intercepted the loose ball.
This then gives Redmond a clear run on goal.
His central defensive partner Ruben Dias helps him out as he tracks the run of Redmond but Stuart Armstrong then appears behind the Southampton winger to offer himself.
Laporte has ran back into his own box and can see Armstrong but is far too slow in closing the Scotland international down and leaves him with oceans of space on the edge of the penalty area.
The ball finds its way to Armstrong who opens his body out to shoot and while Laporte gets in the way to block it ricochets its way to Che Adams who slots the ball past Ederson in goal.
It could be deemed as a bad bit of luck but as the image below shows Laporte is once again found with his feet firmly planted in the ground and negative defending like this breeds indecision and unfortunate events such as this.
Everton should know all about this after the previous encounter between the sides on February 17 when City came away from Merseyside with a 3-1 win.
It was an abject performance from the Blues but Richarlison’s goal highlighted once more Laporte’s issues.
From Seamus Coleman’s cross he is stood in front of the Brazilian forward and cannot be faulted.
However he makes a weak effort to jump for the ball, barely lifting his feet off the ground, and it makes its way to Lucas Digne at the back post.
With the two defensive teammates to his right taken out of the game as they defend the goal line it is incumbent upon Laporte to shift across and mark our number seven.
He fails to do so and after Digne fires the ball across Richarlison is afforded the freedom of Goodison Park to turn the ball in and equalise before we stumbled to defeat in the second half.
With Guardiola’s side in such imperious form it is slim pickings to spot their flaws but we think isolating Laporte and preying on his flat-footedness could be a route to victory on Saturday.
He has not been a regular starter with Dias and old Toffee John Stones often preferred but he has often been preferred for cup games and he was only handed a substitute outing against Borussia Monchengladbach in midweek so is primed to begin this match.
Exploiting him could be the key to forcing our way into the semi-finals of the FA Cup.
In other Everton news, Kevin Campbell predicts Blues clash v Manchester City.