With a lack of athleticism and attacking threat out wide, Everton's rigid defensive setups are stifling their creative talent and stalling the modern transition.
If you speak to any Evertonian, the majority will tell you that they need to sign at least one full-back in the summer transfer window, and they've probably said the same thing for a few years now.
Vitalii Mykolenko and Jake O'Brien are Everton's two main options as full-backs at the moment, and that's almost undisputable as far as David Moyes is concerned. Nathan Patterson, Adam Aznou, and Seamus Coleman are among the alternatives, but it's difficult to even remember any impact from the trio this season, particularly in the Premier League.
The role of a full-back has changed
The role of the full-back has changed over the last few years, and to be honest, it's always changing.
For a while, there was a large emphasis on inverted full-backs. Tucking in your full-back into a central position, allowing your winger to be in 1v1 situations, while also overloading the midfield. This required a special profile of full-back, sometimes even midfielders, to be capable of coming into central areas, receiving on the half turn and playing progressively.
You don't see a whole load of inverted full-backs anymore, with even Pep Guardiola, who kind of made it 'trendy' in the Premier League, operating with more traditional full-backs this season.
But what is a traditional full-back? Think your prime Coleman or Leighton Baines. One minute, they are defending their own box, the next, they are producing an assist in the final third.
Wow, what I'd do to have a prime Baines and Coleman full-back partnership again.
The game is in a period where pace, power, and physicality are incredibly important. Set-pieces, crosses into the box - a slightly old school way of playing. Moyes, at the moment, has a centre-back playing right-back, and a very defensive full-back on the left-hand side. Two players that offer very little threat in the final third.
Does Everton need a Trent Alexander-Arnold who's going to produce 10+ assists a season? No. It's not even about a right-back coming in to add creativity. That would be nice, of course, but it's about having someone with the athleticism to get up and down, the attacking positioning sense to occupy clever areas in attack, the ability to drag away opposition defenders to create space for others.
Getting the best out of Everton's attackers
Too often, Everton's wingers are left in 1v1, 1v2, even 1v3 situations, tasked with making something out of nothing. The likes of Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye make this seem a lot easier than it is, but even they struggle at times.
It means players like Tyler Dibling, who rely heavily on overlapping runners and decoys, have found things more difficult. Tyrique George has also had his struggles at times, although he's more of a direct runner than Dibling.
In some situations, the overlapping run of a right-back might not even lead to them getting the ball, but it's all about moving the opposition defenders around to create space. Like a game of chess.
You see it on the other side for Everton too. Thankfully, as mentioned, players like Grealish can get themselves out of doubled-up situations from time to time and make things happen, but an underlapping or overlapping run from a full-back could take Everton to the next level.
Mykolenko and O'Brien do this from time to time, but not enough. Dewsbury-Hall, Grealish, and Ndiaye is a creative front three, when platformed correctly, and it's about giving them the tools to accelerate them to the next level.
Everton have a real opportunity to take another step forward this summer, and signing two new profiles at full-back would do just that.
