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Coleman grabs another vital goal in deserved Everton win

Lyndon Lloyd Saturday, 21 January, 2017 0comments  |  Jump to most recent
Crystal Palace 0 - 1 Everton
Ian Walton/Getty Images

Everton picked up their third league win in succession and their first away from home in 2017 as Seamus Coleman snatched the only goal of the game at Selhurst Park.

The Irishman collected Tom Davies' incisive pass as the game was ticking towards 90 minutes and rifled the ball emphatically into the roof of the net to reward the Blues for a dominant display.

It was a goal that didn't look like it was going to come despite Everton carving out almost all the chances and restricting Crystal Palace to just one effort on target throughout.

The home side, looking for their first Premier League win under new manager Sam Allardyce, started the better of the two sides and Christian Benteke came within inches of giving them the lead. The Belgian rose in typical fashion to meet James McArthur's cross but Joel Robles was relieved to see his header come back off the crossbar.

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Everton, unchanged from the side that started against Manchester City last weekend, then assumed control of the game and were it not for Wayne Hennessey, they would have gone into the half-time break ahead. The Wales international foiled Kevin Mirallas's chest-down-and-shot after a quarter of an hour, palmed a Ross Barkley effort over and got a firm hand to an excellent effort by Ramiro Funes Mori to divert the ball behind.

Romelu Lukaku came closest of all for the Blues in the first period when he rolled a shot off the base of the post and Barkley was flagged for offside as he hammered the rebound into the empty net.

The second half would follow a similar pattern, although it was Everton who came out of the dressing room with the upper hand. Mirallas mishit a volley at Hennessey and Barkley rattled a shot across the face of the Palace goal with his left foot before dragging an effort with his right a foot wide of the far post eight minutes later.

Lukaku then headed narrowly over from Coleman's cross, Hennessey saved from Barkley's powerful drive as the visitors continued to search for the breakthough and Ronald Koeman replaced Gareth Barry with Morgan Schneiderlin and then Mirallas with Ademola Lookman.

As the contest moved into its final quarter of an hour, Palace began to sense an opportunity to improve their dreadful run of results in the league but Robles, rewarded by his manager for his recent form by keeping his place, pulled off a crucial save with 11 minutes to go.

The Spaniard dived to his right to push Scott Dann's header behind for a corner and provided the platform for Coleman to win the game eight minutes later with another draw between the two clubs looming.

Mason Holgate's low ball into the six-yard box looked to be sneaking into the far corner until Hennessey intervened once more but Everton kept the ball, worked it to Davies and he supplied another assist to set Coleman up to grab the victory.

Palace were left bemoaning the decision by both referee Anthony Taylor and Everton to play on while Jeffrey Schlupp was down with cramp at the other end of the field but Allardyce's men could have no real complaints on the overall balance of play.

With Manchester United dropping points at Stoke — boyhood Blue Wayne Rooney's whipped free kick in stoppage time rescued a point for Jose Mourinho's side and earned him the status of being the Red Devils' leading goalscorer of all time — this was an important result for Everton who have, in the past week, lopped four points off what was a nine-point gap between themselves and sixth place.

Full details: ToffeeWeb match page


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