Everton lost 2-1 at home to West Ham United on Sunday.
Pundit and former Everton midfielder Leon Osman has told BBC Sport that he couldn’t believe Toffees players kept allowing West Ham United’s Andriy Yarmolenko to cut inside onto his left foot.
Everton were back at Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon to take on West Ham, with many expecting a win for the Toffees over a winless and pointless Hammers side.
However, Yarmolenko struck twice in the first half to put West Ham 2-0 up, and whilst Gylfi Sigurdsson pulled one back, Marko Arnautovic bagged a third to give West Ham a 3-1 win.
Yarmolenko, 28, hadn’t even started a Premier League game for West Ham following his summer move from Borussia Dortmund, but was thrust into the side against Everton, and inevitably starred.
The Ukrainian winger had been a long-term target for Everton under Roberto Martinez, as reported by the Liverpool Echo, but no move to Merseyside materialised.
Yarmolenko then just had to star against Everton, but former Toffees midfielder Leon Osman has told BBC Sport that he is confused by the Everton players’ approach to defending the winger.
Yarmolenko loves to cut inside on his left foot, and he did so for his second goal, creating a yard of space before whipping a shot past Jordan Pickford and into the net.
Osman can’t believe that Everton players didn’t know not to allow that, and noted that it was inevitable that he would score against Everton having been on the Toffees’ radar for so long, but was mostly disappointed with how Everton defending against a clearly one-footed player.
“Speaking as a former Everton player, I think it was inevitable Yarmolenko was going to cause us a few problems on his first Premier League start given we tried to sign him twice,” said Osman. “I found out exactly how good he is when I played against him in the Europa League in 2015, when he scored one goal and made a couple more for Dynamo Kiev as we went down to a 5-2 defeat in Ukraine.”
“But everyone knows what a quality player he is now, which – from an Everton point of view – is probably the most disappointing thing about his first goal on Sunday. If you have followed football at all in the past few years you will know that Yarmolenko is massively left-footed, so why did two Everton defenders allow him to cut in on to that side, rather than showing him away from goal and on to his right?” he added.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
