Everton’s season finally got started with their win against Birmingham in Gameweek 7 but despite languishing in the relegation zone, defensively they have actually performed well. In terms of goals conceded they are sitting in fourth place behind Chelsea, Man City and Tottenham, and that is despite the three conceded against Man United at Goodison. With two clean sheets in their last two games and a reasonable run of fixtures ahead, we can now start to take a serious look at the various options in the Everton defence.
While Seamus Coleman offers a great differential option , the form and proven Fantasy potential of Leighton Baines looks too much to ignore; his nailed-on starting role and constant attacking threat has seen him shoot up to third place in our defenders Watchlist rankings this week.
The price tag is of course an issue; an FPL value of 6.8 is a lot of money to part with for an Everton defender, but at least you can be confident of getting a consistent performer, that will earn you points at both ends of the field.
In the 08/09 season Leighton Baines scored an incredible 105 points in the second half of the season, and was far and away the highest scoring defender across these 19 games. To put this into context, in the same period, Didier Drogba scored 60 points, and even Ronaldo only managed 109. Everton kept 11 clean sheets over this spell, and of course, the team’s defensive performance will play a big part in his eventual points tally, but it’s Baines’ individual attacking threat which makes him such a key Fantasy prospect.
Even without Steven Pienaar, the vast majority of Everton’s attacking play comes from the left, and Baines is constantly looking to get into advanced positions to cross the ball into the centre. The chalkboards below highlight just how central Baines is to Everton’s attacking play; taken from Everton’s last game against Birmingham, they compare the number of passes made by Baines and Coleman, who was playing on the right of midfield.
Members can delve further into their Opta stats which only go to provide further evidence of Baines’ performances this season. His stats for “Successful Crosses”, “Key Passes” and “Successful Passes in the Oppositions Half” in particular, illustrate his value to Everton’s attacking play. The comparison with Fantasy favourite Gareth Bale in terms of passing, crosses and touches, is also interesting and goes some way to show just how influential Baines has become.
Forthcoming fixtures are a bit of a mixed bag. A Merseyside derby is never easy, but with the recent turmoil and Liverpool’s poor form so far this season, David Moyes’ men will fancy their chances of taking all three points on Sunday. Torres looks to have recovered sufficiently to take part in this one while Jagielka looks likely to miss out, but a third clean sheet in a row is still a distinct possibility at home. A tricky game away to Tottenham follows, but after this fixtures lighten up considerably (STK blp BOL ARS sun WBA), making Baines a very solid mid-term investment leading up to the Christmas period.
