With 20 minutes left in Everton's match with Arsenal, David Moyes is taking drastic measures to get back into the match. Down 0-2, the Everton manager has brought on Yakubu and Jermaine Beckford for Mikel Arteta and Phil Neville. After dropping Seamus Coleman into the back from right wing, the Everton boss is left with a 4-3-3 that features Steven Pienaar and Tim Cahill in the middle.
It's an aggressive team, an attacking one, and one that predictably can not win the ball from Arsenal. In the first five minutes after Moyes switched formation, Arsenal held 85 percent of the possession. When they have had the ball, pressure from the Arsenal midfield has created turnovers.
So Moyes' tactics don't seem to be working, nor should they have been expected to work, but what's a manager to do? Everton hasn't had many chances in this match, and needing two goals in 20 minutes, the Scot was faced with an implicit choice. Do you stay with something that clearly isn't working? Or, do you take the chance on a system that will probably fail but at least represents a roll of the dice?
Everton is not going to have much of the ball as they close this match, but if they can get a few moments of possession, send their attackers forward, and get Coleman and Leighton Baines to launch crosses into the box, they can at least try something new. Perhaps a foul near the area, Baines above a ball, a direct kick goal?
What they were doing before was not working. They had to try something.
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