Ashley Young makes honest admission over Everton tactics as Fulham regret revealed

The veteran full-back set up another goal in the 1-1 draw with Fulham in the Premier League on Saturday

Ashley Young has confirmed Everton’s gameplan was to give up possession against Fulham. The veteran full-back set up a stoppage-time equaliser for the Blues against the London club on Saturday, crossing to Beto to head home.

While Everton managed to escape from the contest with a 1-1 draw, for large spells they were outplayed by Marco Silva’s side and struggled to create many openings in the match. Former Blues midfielder Alex Iwobi gave the visitors a deserved lead in the second half and they squandered numerous opportunities to add to their advantage.

But Young and Beto were on hand to salvage something from the match, taking Everton’s unbeaten run to five games heading into the weekend’s clash with Southampton.

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Speaking about the game, Young said it was Everton’s plan to surrender the ball to their opponents and try to win the game from a solid base.

“You see the way we’ve gone about our job, we’ve given up possession,” he said. “We knew at times that Fulham would have a lot of possession. It’s about staying in shape and staying focused as a team; no one jumping out of our shape and letting the balls come through the middle.

“We wanted them to go wide and that’s exactly what we did. We gave them a lot of possession, but we’ve got that attitude where we can give up the possession and when we get the chance to create and get in the box, that’s when we hit the [opposition].

“We’ve got that never-say-die attitude. We knew putting the ball in the box, putting [Michael Keane] up as a striker and we knew how to play off the bits. We got Keano and Beto in the box and boys who could put the ball in the box. I gambled to get to the back post to try and fire something back across goal and Beto was there to head it in.”

Young has been maligned at times having joined Everton on a free transfer last summer, although he is currently enjoying his best spell at the club.

While the former Manchester United man no longer flies forward frequently from full-back, he has chipped in with three assists in his last three games. However, Young revealed the main emotion after Fulham was disappointment as the team failed to keep a clean sheet.

“I’m in the team to do a job and to give that experience and get on the ball to play passes forward,” he explained. “Like I say, we were slightly disappointed, to be honest, after the game with the goal that we conceded and in the manner that we conceded it.

“But with the fight and the team spirit that we’ve got here, we know that we could go to the 95th minute and we knew we were going to create a chance. It was just being able to get on the end of it and score it.”