Everton must address alarming stat from Crystal Palace win, it could cost them in future
Everton ended Crystal Palace’s 19-game unbeaten run with a 2-1 victory on Sunday afternoon.
The Eagles have been in fine form at the start of the new Premier League season, but the Merseysiders rallied in the latter stages to turn the game on its head and complete their comeback.
Jack Grealish netted a stoppage-time winner for Everton to spark jubilant scenes at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, where the positivity is flowing freely at the moment.
However, despite their major last-minute high against the South Londoners, there is one area of the game that David Moyes will be desperately hoping never repeats itself.
Everton set Premier League high for duels lost vs Crystal Palace
Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye did the business for Everton yet again this weekend, with the pair of wing wizards both enjoying exceptional starts to the new campaign.
The latter drew his side onto level terms from the penalty spot in the 76th minute, before the former notched his first goal for his loan club in the game’s dying embers.
The duo are central to everything good about the Toffees at the moment, but in the wave of positivity following a late winner, it can be easy to gloss over issues that reared their head at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
- Everton lost 55% of ground duels and 53% of aerial duels against Palace
- Palace also completed 12 more tackles than their hosts at the weekend
Everton lost 73 duels in their win over Crystal Palace, which was the highest total of duels lost across any Premier League game so far this season, according to stats provided by Sofascore.
Moyes will have been pleased with his team’s performance for the most part, but he will be desperately hoping that this is the one and only time that they will be associated with a statistic of this ilk.
They were able to escape unscathed with the points this time around; however, it will not be a common occurrence for a team to lose so many individual battles and still win the game.
Losing battles is uncommon for a David Moyes team
Moyes has turned Everton around since he came back to the club in January, but there is no way that he will not find that statistic concerning after Sunday’s win.
The Scot is arguably one of the most underappreciated managers of his generation in the Premier League in terms of the football that he plays, but his teams have always been built on hard work and doing the basics well.
Seeing his group come out second best in the battles will undoubtedly have grated on the boss, and he will likely have made it very clear that it cannot happen again.
Everton may have got away with it on this occasion, but it could easily have cost them the result at the weekend, and likely will do if it ever occurs again.
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