Stunning late Keane strike salvages another point for gutsy Everton

Everton 1 - 1 Tottenham Hotspur

Everton recovered from going a man down and conceding a second-half penalty to claim a precious point at the death against Tottenham thanks to a brilliant 90th-minute strike from Michael Keane.

The defender atoned for his mistake that had gifted Spurs the lead by rifling home brilliantly from 25 yards just a couple of minutes after the numbers had been evened up at 10 men apiece following Lucas Moura’s dismissal for an ugly, shin-high tackle on the Blues' No 5.

Everton had battled for every ball and were hoping to press home a victory in the second half but the game looked to have slipped from their grasp in the space of 10 minutes after Abdoulaye Doucouré was sent off for striking Harry Kane in the face in a 58th-minute altercation near the dugouts.

But Sean Dyche’s men refused to lie down and after Hugo Lloris had tipped Idrissa Gueye’s terrific effort over the bar, they were rewarded when Keane grabbed his moment of retribution as the contest was about to move into stoppage time.

Once more, Dyche named an unchanged line-up and with the Goodison faithful playing their part with another intimidating atmosphere under the lights, the Blues set their stall out with a high-energy pressing game and moments of attacking intensity that almost yielded an opener inside the first half.

Demarai Gray curled just wide after lovely work by Alex Iwobi, Keane chested the ball down following a low free-kick and hammered a crisp volley that cleared the bar in the 10th minute and Ben Godfrey saw a snapshot off Amadou Onana’s smart back-heel deflect wide off Eric Dier in the 24th.

Doucouré spurned the best chance of the lot, though, when Alex Iwobi picked him out unmarked in the middle with a cross from the right but the Mali international headed well over.

Tottenham had been finding success hitting the channels and switching the ball to the flanks trying to find Ivan Perisic and Pedro Porro in space and the latter forced Jordan Pickford into emergency action with an out-stretched foot as he flashed a dangerous ball across the six-yard box in only the fifth minute.

Four minutes later, Iwobi was dispossessed on the halfway line and though James Tarkowski cleaned out Oliver Skipp with a crunching tackle on the edge of his penalty area, the fell to Kane off Seamus Coleman and no doubt thought he had scored only for Keane to block his effort as it was heading past Pickford into the net.

Kane missed with a header in uncharacteristic fashion with a quarter of an hour gone, Perisic finding him with another pin-point cross from the left before, late in the half, Lloris made a routine stop from Onana’s low drive and Pickford denied Son Hueng-Min superbly but the offside flag rendered his save moot.

What was arguably Everton’s best opening of the match to that point came two minutes after the restart when Onana intercepted Dier’s attempt to play out for the back and Gueye found himself with an option to his left and right. Instead, the Senegal international opted to go it alone and skied a dreadful effort into the Gwladys Street.

Onana’s attempt to place a shot from the edge of the box from Demarai Gray’s lay-off was also foiled by the goalkeeper but any momentum that the Toffees were trying to build was destroyed in the 58th minute.

Kane and Doucouré kicked out at each other by the touchline, followed by flailing arms, with the Everton man’s hand catching the England striker in the face, prompting him to collapse to the turf and referee David Coote to brandish an unavoidable red card.

Despite Iwobi having a chance that he lashed disappointingly wide a few minutes later, the visitors began to take advantage of the extra man with more probing moves into the Everton box, one of which saw the ball teased to the back post where Perisic nodded it back into the path of Cristian Romero.

The oblivious Keane went to stab the ball clear, tripping the Argentine leaving Coote with no choice but to award a spot-kick that Kane customarily despatched into the bottom corner to maintain a scoring record of almost a goal a game against Everton.

Roared on by a crowd that refused to give up, Everton kept fighting, however, and Gray tested Lloris with a decent shot from the angle before Gueye drove one that was sneaking under the crossbar until the Frenchman batted it over his bar for a corner. Keane muscled his way to meet the set-piece at the back post but couldn’t get enough power on it to force it home.

Dyche then moved to freshen up a side that had run itself ragged for the cause by withdrawing Gray in favour of Ellis Simms and Vitalii Mykolenko for Coleman in the 76th minute,  and then swapped Tom Davies and James Garner for Onana and Gueye in the 83rd.

Everton were given a late fillip when Moura was given his marching orders to even up the personnel in the 88th minute and then, shaking off the pain from the Brazilian's tackle, Keane strode forward in the final minute of normal time and unloaded an Exocet missile that Lloris could only watch fly inside his left-hand post to make it 1-1.

Both sides had shots crucially deflected wide of goal in stoppage time, one from Tarkowski and one from Dejan Kulusevski but it finished all square with the Toffees once again feeling more buoyant than their London opponents thanks to a late leveller.

The point moves Everton out of the bottom three again and back into the 15h-place berth they had occupied coming into the weekend with another stern test ahead at Old Trafford this coming weekend.

 

• Full match report
• Matchday updates and reaction

---

---

---

How to get rid of these ads and support TW