James McCarthy - Everton's lynchpin, a followup

The excellent Everton fansite www.grandoldteam.com recently a published an article on their Irish midfielder entitled "James McCarthy: Everton's lynchpin". You can read it here - http://www.grandoldteam.com/2015/01/01/james-mccarthy-evertons-linchpin/ - and is well worth the time spent.
In the article, the author Michael Rutherford, notes that many Everton fans would argue there is a correlation between Everton's inconsistent start to the 2014/15 season and McCarthy's participation in only 73% of their fixtures, compared to 90% in 2013/14.

While we're not an Everton site here at IA Towers (obviously!) we do have a record of James McCarthy's appearances since he started his career with Hamilton Academical, so we've crunched the numbers to see what effect his appearance, and absence, has on the Everton results.

James		Home			Away			Total
McCarthy	P	W	D	L	W	D	L	W	D	L
Starts	52	17	4	5	11	7	8	28	11	13
Does not start	15	3	1	2	1	2	5	4	3	8

While 15 games without the midfielder as a starting player is not a great sample size, it does still display the difference he makes to the Goodison Park side. With James in the starting XI, Roberto Martinez's men go on to win more than half of their games (54%) and lose exactly one in four (25%). However, when James does not lineout with his fellow Evertonians, they win 27%, and lose almost as many as they win with him - 53%!

Strangely McCarthy's appearance (or lack thereof) has little effect on draws, with Everton finishing all square in 21% of the games he starts, and 20% of the games he doesn't.

Pushing these numbers into a 38 game season, with McCarthy starting, the Toffees can look forward to 20 wins and 8 draws, with 10 losses and a final total of 69 points, not far off the 72 they finished the 2013/14 season with.

Without McCarthy, it's a much different story, only 10 wins and 8 draws, and 20 losses leaving them on 38 points. Going on their current rate of 1.05 points per game, Everton can expect to finish on 39.9 points (lets round it up to 40), again not far off the total without McCarthy.

As we don't have the appropriate data for all of Everton's players over the same period, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what is missing from their side this season, but from these numbers it's hard to argue that McCarthy is not a vital player to the side.

Green European Quartets

After Darron Gibson was introduced for Stephen Naismith late in the second half of Everton's Europa League tie against Wolfsburg, to join compatriots Seamus Coleman, James McCarthy and Aiden McGeady on the pitch last night, it marked the first time four Irish players appeared for the same side in a Europa League game, and the first time a quartet of Irish players appeared together in a European game, for an English or Scottish side since August 2012.

After finishing fourth in the Scottish Premier League 2011-12 season, Dundee United qualified for the third round of the Europa League the following season where they faced Dynamo Moscow. The Terrors earned a credible 2-2 draw at Tannadice on August 2nd, with no less than five Irish players in their starting XI - Sean Dillon, Gavin Gunning, Willo Flood, Richie Ryan and Jon Daly -  but unfortunately were trounced 5-0 in Arena Khimki a week later where Gunning, Flood, Ryan and Daly started for Dundee United, with compatriot Patrick Barrett on the substitutes bench.

For the last time four Irish players appeared for an English club in European competition, we have to go back more than twelve months before Dundee United's games to July 2011 when Stoke City faced Croatian side Hadjuk Split. Marc Wilson, Glenn Whelan, Rory Delap and Jonathan Walters all lined out for the Potters, with Walters scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win.

With all four of Everton's Irish players seemingly in the forefront of Roberto Martinez's thoughts, let's hope we're not waiting at least another twelve months before four of Martin O'Neill's men are playing a European tie together!