James Tarkowski has given his verdict on Aston Villa’s 4-0 thumping of Everton.
Everton centre-back James Tarkowski played the full 90 minutes at Villa Park, but could do little to prevent the home side coasting to a dominant victory.
Whilst Aston Villa deserve credit for their attacking display, Everton were woeful at the back. Their performance was littered with individual errors and a surprising lack of discipline. Sean Dyche prides himself as a manager on his ability to organise his teams, but there was no real sense of structure in Everton’s performance against the Villans.
On an individual level, Tarkowski was poor. His centre-back partner, Michael Keane, also ensured a torrid afternoon. Summer signing Ashley Young struggled at full-back, looking every one of his 38 years.
The Toffees were also overrun in midfield, with Idrissa Gueye and Amadou Onana unable to get a grip on the game or stem the tide of Aston Villa attacks.
Tarkowski optimistic about Everton
Everton are without a point on the board in the Premier League and Dyche has plenty of problems to solve. He needs to find solutions quickly if Everton are going to avoid another season spent fighting desperately against relegation.
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The first thing he needs to do is identify exactly what went wrong at Villa Park. Tarkowski, as quoted by The Liverpool Echo has already said that, “we started well for about seven minutes and then capitulated. I saw poor body language…Every goal for me is awful. Once they scored a goal, they got their tails up, and we just completely put our heads down and didn’t even get near them after that.”
However, Tarkowski is keen to ensure that Everton heads don’t drop any further. The 30-year-old believes there are positives that he and his teammates can take from this match. He said, “the positives are these last week got battered 5-1 and then turned up and put a 4-0 win in, so there’s no reason why we can’t do that next week…It wasn’t a lack of effort; people were working hard and running around; we just weren’t using our heads right, and we got opened way too many times.”
Aston Villa did indeed get beaten 5-1 by Newcastle United on the opening day, and responded with this thrashing of Everton. The Merseyside club are set to welcome Wolves to Goodison Park this Saturday. Wolves are also without a point and look destined for a difficult campaign. Dyche needs to see a response from his team in this crucial clash.
It is also true that Everton didn’t give up against Aston Villa. As Tarkowski says, they worked hard and kept running. A lack of effort on the part of the £100,000-per-week defender or his teammates was not to blame. A lack of confidence and quality in the squad is a huge problem, though.