Hanna Bennison at Everton: How can the 18-year-old Swede fit into Everton’s midfield and help in reaching UWCL – scout report

Hanna Bennison has joined Everton Women last week coming from Rosengård, joining her other two Swedish teammates Anna Anvegård and Nathalie Björn, and she already caught all the medias attention following her first transfer outside of Sweden. The Swedish international (yes, she has already played for Sweden) will most probably shine at Everton given her quality but also given the excellent squad Everton have been building. The team has been reinforced with key players in most positions who can make this Everton side challenge seriously for the top three spots and why not for the title if the head coach succeeds in exploiting his players in the best possible way.

In this tactical analysis article, we will explore how Hanna Bennison would fit into Evertons midfield and how she can be very useful alongside her new teammates despite her young age. The analysis will include her main traits while looking at whats she is already excellent at and what she can improve by playing at Everton and against tough FAWSL teams such as Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United.

Position and possible roles

Willie Kirk, Evertons head coach, will be able to use Bennison in plenty of formations and give her mixed roles as she played as a central midfielder and as a defensive midfielder according to many systems. She can play alongside just one midfielder in a 4-2-3-1 formation as she can do well in a 4-3-3 formation with three players in midfield. Moreover, at this young age, Kirk will be able to employ Bennison in the way that he wants while giving her the desired movement instructions in order to execute certain plans. This will be helpful for Bennison to be even more mature tactically as it will fasten the process of this tactical maturity. Plus, playing alongside players like Aurora Galli, Kenza Dali and Izzy Christiansen in midfield (to name a few) will contribute hugely in making Bennison play better and have more confidence in her abilities.

In fact, Bennison can form a complementary midfield duo either with Galli or with Dali as both these players are mainly defensive midfielders who are excellent in this aspect. This will enable Bennison to play without much worry and focus even more on passing and playmaking as this is one of her best characteristics. And as you can see in this picture, Bennison is not a player who stays in a single position, she is a dynamic player who likes to advance and contribute in assisting her teammates and actually also score goals. And this is something that shouldnt be ignored by Kirk.

Playmaking abilities

When it comes to her playmaking skills, Bennison has proved in the last Olympics that she is following the steps of Caroline Seger in terms of tactical discipline, vision and passing. Even though she is yet to become as mature as Seger in terms of vision, Bennison showed that with a little more games and experience she can reach that level and why not become even more decisive since she has the potential to do it, and well see how below.

Bennison showed during her time at Rosengård as well as for Sweden that she can create danger using long passes between the line and sometimes behind the defensive line. And as you can see from this example, she was excellent in choosing the adequate crossing timing to not let her teammate fall in the offside trap, which is very fundamental these days.

At Everton, Bennison will see a