Little platoons - what Everton need to do next.

Think of your favourite team's legendary team, the names roll off the tongue.

Then look up how often that XI actually all played in the same game.

I did it with Everton once and the team I regarded as the definitive mid-80s line up actually only played all in the same match about 10 times. Ever.

However, what there was were consistent partnerships. Not just traditional partnerships like centre backs, or even fullbacks and wingers, but the closest passing options for each player.

So a left side central midfielder would have the right sided central midfielder, the left winger, the left centre back and the left forward as their partners.

So in a Manchester United glory year's team you could pick Roy Keane and say to his left will be Giggs, to his right Scholes, behind him Staam and ahead Yorke. Maybe one of those players won't be available but if three out of four are then they will each know what to expect of three-quarters of their normal passing options.

I heard a Brazilian manager refer to these groupings of close players as "little platoons" which I thought was cool. On further googling I can see it originated with Edmund Burke (regarded as the founder of Conservatism as a political movement) said it first referring to the importance of the small tight-knit groups around us.

A cool empirical project would be to look at all the teams in a league and see how success relates to time spent playing together. However, I can see already several main issues, "you don't change a winning team" and teams that are winning lots don't tend to lose their best players to other clubs.

But I think there is something to it, particularly if you adjust for finances. The relative success versus transfer expenditure of Everton under Moyes, and the deluxe version of Spurs under Pochettino, shows that consistent good performances can occur when teams have played lots of games together.

Since Everton have had money they've accumulated 25 first team players, 19 loanees and still top the U23 league.

But now finish 11th instead of 6th.

And as fans, we will be wanting more and more new signings to fix the problem.

But what if the problem is too many players rather than too few?

What if Everton just picked a core of players from the current squad and build the platoons.

Those little platoons can work together to have greater quality than their individual parts. Yes, you can, and must, introduce new players occasionally to freshen things up, to replace individuals but you need a core group who know each other's game.

As it stands, I couldn't name you a single "platoon" at Everton. No three or four players who play in a similar area of the pitch and combine well.

Developing those relationships, and changing the first XI a maximum of 1 or 2 players a year is going to have far more impact in the long term than lashing another £100m at even more signings.

That doesn't mean no new signings. It means targeted long term acquisitions with a plan for how they are used.

So we get a midfielder like Sangare from Toulouse and a fullback like Reece James from Chelsea and that it is.

We develop the partnerships so that a player knows what the player either side, and ahead or behind is likely to do with or without the ball.

Because without that stability we won't achieve anything.