So Steven Gerrard says Everton play like Stoke and it seems to offend both Stoke and Everton fans. Get over it, he’s not insulting anybody.
Liverpool struggle against Stoke, a team who make life difficult for you by being very direct at times and have big, physical players not scared of putting themselves about. They use wingers and tall forwards to get high balls in from wide areas as well as from deep. It works, it’s effective and skilful teams don’t like playing against it. The Stoke manager has built a squad capable of standing toe to toe with anyone in the league on it’s day on a very limited budget.
On Sunday Everton were often very direct, aiming long, high balls for Fellaini and Jelavic, sometimes getting the ball out wide to cross high for the same two targets. It’s a style that David Moyes has used to great effect, Everton have had a great 2012 in terms of league results. Their squad has been put together fairly cheaply so it has been easier for them to acquire mainly physical, hard working players rather than the more expensive skilful players with vision that the boys with the big money go for.
Everton play in a similar way to Stoke, Stoke play in a similar way to Everton. It’s not a criticism, it’s a comparison of styles and both teams should be happy to be compared to the other as they have both been successful and have both reached an FA Cup final in recent times playing this way. Gerrard wasn’t criticising, he was saying Everton are hard to play against, as are Stoke.
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