Three Talking Points - Everton 1 Man City 3

I'll try my best to keep these points as positive as I can - we need all the positivity we can get going into an Anfield derby on a run of 1 win in 5 league games. I could quite easily talk about Gylfi Sigurdsson and how he must have something mega on Carlo Ancelotti for him to persist with playing him. I could similarly bang on about Jordan Pickford and yet another mistake leading to a goal conceded from outside the box or our dismal home form.

Overall, what I'm choosing to take from that game is that we were certainly much improved from Sunday's horror show against Fulham and there were positives to be taken. We were beaten by the best team in the league who have now won 17 games in a row; and who needed a lucky deflection, a worldy strike and a goalkeeping error to win the game.

If we'd approached the games against West Ham, Newcastle and Fulham, in particular, with the same attitude and application as we showed tonight we would certainly have picked up more points and better results.

Here are my 3 talking points from tonight's game. I'm all for engagement so please feel free to send in your comments/replies/thoughts. All comments are welcome!

Abdoulaye Doucoure

What a signing this fella has been. You can count on 1 hand the number of bad games he has had and the number of blades of grass he hasn't covered.

In the second half tonight I thought we dropped off generally as a team but in the first half I thought Doucoure was immense. He can be sloppy in possession at times but that can be forgiven as he brings so much to this Everton team.

He is such a commanding figure in the middle of the park and a proper box to box midfielder. He has an incredible engine and literally never stops running.

His heat map (via whoscored.com) shows just how active he was and how much ground he covered in the game.

I believe he has excelled in the absence of Allan and has often had to do the job of 2 or even 3 players as a lot of the time his midfield partners have not performed to his level. I hope that the return of Allan will help to release Doucoure, enabling him to get more involved in the final third to add to his goal tally which he is more than capable of doing.

When you think of some of the signings we have wasted money on since Farhad Moshiri came to the club, I think Doucoure has been absolute steal at £20 million.

Tom Davies

Say what you want about his hairstyle or his eccentric fashion sense but Tom Davies is proving week after week that he can be an asset to us this season and beyond.

Don't get me wrong, to get to where we want to be as a club my honest opinion is that unfortunately I don't think Davies is good enough to be starting games of football for Everton.

However, as things stand, he is more than good enough. I thought again tonight he had a really good game. The decision to take him off and move Sigurdsson back into a more defensive role was quite frankly baffling, and Gylfi's pathetic attempt at tracking Bernado Silva when in Davies' position ultimately resulted in City's third goal.

Considering we only had 29% possession in the game some of Davies' numbers were pretty impressive:

70% pass completion (he completed 85% of his forward passes)

1 tackle

4 interceptions

The 4 interceptions are the reason why I believe Tom has a part to play in the squad. Other than Allan, he is the only other central midfielder we have with the discipline and positional sense to sit in and shield the back 4. Granted, he is not as good as Allan, so there is admittedly a drop off in quality when Allan is not in there.

What is beginning to become clear though is that the manager has absolute trust in him to do exactly as he asks. In Tom we have a kid who loves Everton and wants to do well for Everton. He gives his all every time he pulls on the shirt (which is more than can be said for some others) and you can see what it means to him to play for the club he loves.

I think regardless of where you are in the table or how many world class players you have at your disposal, every team needs a player like Tom Davies.

Lucas Digne - Flying Winger?

It seems almost ridiculous to even be considering playing the best left back in the league anywhere other than at left back doesn't it? I remember having several similar arguments with my old man - him suggesting we should push Leighton Baines further up the pitch and me telling him to stop being stupid.

That is however the conundrum we are now faced with in my view.

I think it is obvious that we are much better defensively when we set up with the 4 centre backs across the back line. It is in this system that we have had most joy and success this season. That of course means that Digne misses out, but given he is our most creative player can we afford to leave him out altogether?

We've seen him operate in midfield a fair bit recently and I wonder whether we could look to use him in a left midfield role more often. There would be a number of options available to us off the back of this. It could allow Richarlison to move to the right side, freeing up James Rodriguez to move more central where he seems to be more effective. It could also provide us with the stability and structure to play 442 with Richarlison joining Dominic Calvert-Lewin up top.

I fully expect a back 4 of Holgate, Mina, Keane and Godfrey against Liverpool on Saturday (assuming Mina is fit having gone off injured tonight) which will inevitably see Digne utilised in midfield again.

What I would say is we need to establish a settled back 4 and stick with them. We have proven throughout this season that we are not very good at dealing with defensive rotation. On this basis, if we are happy that our best defensive unit is the 4 centre backs, we need to find a place for Lucas Digne elsewhere as he is far too good to be sat on the bench.

It's a tricky one and I'd be interested to know what you all think!