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Guileless Blues fall to another dismal defeat

Lyndon Lloyd Tuesday, 1 January, 2019 0comments  |  Jump to most recent
Everton 0 - 1 Leicester City

Michael Keane's error gifted Jamie Vardy the chance to grab the game's only goal

Everton fell to their fourth defeat in five games as their New Year opened in the same vein as the previous one on the back of a dreadful display at Goodison Park.

Jamie Vardy plundered the only goal of a scrappy game when Ricardo Pereira seized on Michael Keane's poor control and put the striker in on goal to slide the ball past his England team-mate, Jordan Pickford.

Coming in the 58th minute, there was ample time for the Blues to hit back to try and get something from the game but they lacked quality and creativity throughout despite looking the more likely of the two teams to score in the first half.

Richarlison, starting back out on left, cannoned an early effort into a defender and Dominic Calvert-Lewin headed well wide but Jonjoe Kenny, in for the rested Seamus Coleman, would come closest all afternoon for the home side.

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The young fullback latched onto a loose ball just inside the penalty area and thundered a shot off the outside of the post with 18 minutes gone.

Gylfi Sigurdsson came close to equalising shortly after Leicester's goal but his volley off Theo Walcott's headed pass flew narrowly over before both the Icelandic international and Lucas Digne struck the wall with free kick chances.

Silva tried to rescue the game by throwing Bernard on for the tired-looking André Gomes and then Cenk Tosun on for Walcott and the striker would go closer than anyone to making the breakthrough.

Tosun seized on a defensive slip to sting Kasper Schmeichel's palms with a quickly-taken shot with 15 minutes left and then, after great work by Bernard went begging because there was no one in the six-yard box to meet his low centre, the Turk popped up with a close-range header in stoppage time but was denied by the goalkeeper.

The defeat, Everton's eighth of the season, extends the Blues' dreadful run of results to just one win in their last eight matches and sees them fall further away from the European qualification places.

Of more concern to Silva will be the desperate lack of guile, invention and chance creation that is plaguing his team who failed to score for the second game running.

 

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