Never-say-die spirit earns Richarlison and Everton late reward

I would praise the efforts of Anthony Gordon and Alex Iwobi, who I will admit is surprising the hell out of me.

I'd add an honourary mention for Mykolenko too. I think he could actually grow in to a solid left-back.

A point wasn't enough from this game but, as with every game since they beat us, it now depends how Burnley do vs Saints tomorrow.

Players were still ambling back, we were pressing shadows, never close to the man or the ball. We were lucky to go in only one goal down but, as the game went on, we could see the pressure was having some effect.

Their infuriating time-wasting throughout the game cost them in the end with 5 mins added on enabling Richarlison to scramble the ball over the line for a well deserved point.

I think Gordon's passing and set plays were poor, Gray just struggled, we allowed them the midfield, far too easy, Needed Doucouré alongside Allan for the latter to play well I think...a special mention for Rondon who, despite all the justified flak he has had to date, did well and the team looked far better with Richarlison wide and a striker in the middle.

Small matter of Anfield this weekend... have to raise the game and be first to the ball every time, play Rondon and Richarlison. Upsets do happen.

That said, I don't think some of the blame aimed at Lampard is fair. Bringing Mina into the team and retaining Delph were supported by a lot of posters in the lead up to the game. Equally, his decision to start Richarlison as the forward was justified in my opinion – as proved by his goal. Rondon has been poor all season and patently unfit. He cannot last 90 minutes and will best serve as an impact substitute.

He will also have set up the team to stay compact and retain a high intensity in the press, but that was impacted by two things: 1) when this team concedes a goal, their confidence collapses; 2) very few players in the squad have the consistency to put in good performances in two consecutive games.

That's not to excuses Lampard for the formation, tactical and line-up changes he has made since taking over. He should have simplified the tactics and formation early. But, he has won 6 games in his first 2.5 months compared to the 1 game that the Spanish sociopath won his final 3.5 months in charge.

From the first minute they waltzed right through us and while under the Spaniard we seemed to do nothing for the initial 15 minutes, we seemed here to run around like headless chickens, at best schoolyard football, continually chasing the ball while Leicester just used the spaces we'd run out from.

Then they waltzed through again and Mina seemed to slip onto his backside and that was it and when Richarlison missed his first sitter I just thought that it was relegation fortune and football. Indeed, it took Everton nearly 20 minutes to realize that Gordon was on the pitch which seemed to coincide with Leicester taking their foot off the pedal.

There didn't seem to be any great movement from Everton and we seemed to play three sideways passes before giving it to somebody with two Leicester players on him.

Then Richarlison missed his second sitter and Coleman just had to hit it first time but took too long and I really did think it was all over for us when Richarlison got lucky, a vital point I'm not sure we deserved but we then seemed keen to get in for the kill when the Ref who'd given us nothing all night wasted a couple of minutes for them and then seemed to blow 2 minutes early.

I'm not sure we had a MotM but I certainly thought Iwobi was our best and at long last somebody has realized he is a lot better when played more centrally. Now we just need somebody to wake up to the fact that Richarlison is better played wider which means only one of Gordon or Gray, and then to get us to move the ball forward more quickly and as Leicester showed, to use the space.

And now I tend to think how we play in our next game depends on Wolves or Southampton(?) doing us a favour tomorrow.

As with the Newcastle game, when Calvert-Lewin came on, it made a difference bringing Rondon on. A centre-forward who had a chance of doing something off long balls. It's just not Richarlison's game.

Our fate is still in our own hands.

It's a shame that Calvert-Lewin is more interested in tarting about with GQ etc, than getting fit and putting a shift on the football pitch. Totally loss of focus on what his job is. A limited bit of success and he's fallen into the trap of thinking he's far better than he really is.

Overall though we seriously lack quality. People will mention his hand in the goal but I feel Alli offers nothing in return for his £100k wages pw.

Iwobi was our best player; if we survive then this relegation battle may be the making of him at Everton. I certainly hope the fans remember his efforts and take him more to their hearts.

That said, I would reluctantly move him wide at Mordor in order to play either Van de Beek or Doucouré in the slightly more advanced midfield position (assuming Delph can manage 3 games in a row) and keep Richarlison as the main striker. We can always switch it up and bring Rondon on later.

A point is invaluable, 3 points would have represented being half-way up the swinging rope ladder.

This season, 35 points will probably be enough. Just hoping that Burnley don't have a new manager bounce tonight. Southampton can be anything and it's nail-biting stuff.

They pressed the back four when Pickford had the ball and we were incapable of progressing easily. They just played it smartly from the back showing us how it should be done.

The ability to receive the ball and quickly pass to a colleague should be ingrained in a professional footballer, not our collection of faux footballers though. Our only tactic is to lump the ball forward from Pickford, to our one forward, and hope for something to happen.

You can see why we are down amongst the dead men. Saying all of that, we had some good chances that we missed – hang your heads, Richarlison and Coleman, and we got a point with a jammy goal at the end.

I'm still living in hope but I just want this season to end. Goodison is a hard watch now, we are so poor to watch. The crowd does its job well but it's hard.

Free season ticket when you are over 90? Not many Blues will get to that age watching this drivel. We are the payers, not the players, and there is Sunday to look forward to!! Everything will be switched off and I'm out for the day...

Last night quickly went from 'must-win' to 'must-not-lose', and we didn't, which is something.

Here's hoping for a bit of luck on Sunday. There have been some shock results this season, and I'd love it if we could pull off a famous win at their place.

I'm also starting to really like Mykolenko. He looks a lot more confident now, I wish Gray would have actually passed to him a couple of times when he did his overlapping runs. I also find that he looks like he's physically bigger even just in the last couple of games. When I first saw him he looked like a child in the shirt but now he's a bit more imposing. Maybe they just gave him a tighter shirt and told him to let his hair grow out a bit.

How ironic that our equaliser was created by Alli and Rondon, 2 players who have struggled to get game time.

We started very poorly; if it wasn't for a brilliant recovery tackle by Coleman, we could and should have been a goal down in the first 2 minutes. But it was only a matter of time before Leicester did score, and it was worrying how easy they were creating openings, they moved the ball effortlessly from front to back.

I think many of us inside Goodison were fearing the worst at this point and a 2nd goal for them seemed inevitable. I think the problem in the first half was that the front 3 and Iwobi were pressing high up the pitch but Delph and Allan, wary of being caught out of position, didn't press high, so this left loads of room for their midfield to operate and create chances.

The 2nd half there wasn't the gaps for Leicester to exploit and we started to get into the game a bit more, but the game changed when Alli and Rondon were introduced.

I, like everybody, have been puzzled as to why Lampard hasn't introduced Rondon in other games rather than moving Richarlison into the main striker's role. Last night, he was struggling to win any headers in open play against Evans and Fofana but, as soon as Rondon came on, that changed.

From the first long ball played forward, Rondon won the header, flicked it on to Richarlison, who got a good shot on target. I know Richarlison has said he wants to play in the main striker's role, but his skill set isn't best used there and he is too easy to mark, where playing wide or even given a free role suits him better.

Despite him missing 2 excellent chances, he never hides and always tries to the very end and yesterday he got his reward for doing that.

I also thought Alli did okay when he came on and I like that bit of nastiness he still has when he clattered into Maddison to let him know he isn't as good as he thinks he is; I just don't like Maddison at all. Yes, he is talented but his ego is bigger than his talent.

But the player who most impressed me was Wesley Fofana, what a player this boy is. He is lightning quick, good in the air, and very comfortable in bringing the ball out of defence.

I think in the end a draw was a fair result. I heard Rodgers say he thought that his team were as close to being back to their best, so maybe a draw against a side who are back to their best wasn't a bad result.

Although we have some talented players, the pressure of playing while being in a relegation battle is taking its toll on some of them, which is understandable.

But it was terrific to see the crowd didn't give up, despite being a goal down and not playing well. In the end, I think it's our fans who are having nearly as big an effect on results as the players, even Rodgers acknowledged how much the crowd influence games at Goodison.

Energy on the pitch translates to energy in the crowd; a lack of energy on the pitch translates to nervous energy in the crowd.

I'm prepared to give Lampard time, but only if I see things that I can identify with. Last night, Everton needed to break up Leicester's rhythm, and this would have helped turn a very edgy and nervous crowd into a crowd ready to shout and scream for everything imo. (I know we did anyway, but in a more positive manner.)

I'm not sure Leicester would have enjoyed themselves so much if this would have happened, and I put this failure on the manager just as much as the players last night.

Go and fight, go and break the play up, engage the crowd in a positive manner, all these vital commodities were missing last night, as Everton once again played like a team, being at two stations.

Only Ancelotti and Allardyce have been able to get this team playing compact and, although it was ugly, it kept us out of serious danger. Koeman, Silva, and Benitez, all got the sack because they couldn't get Everton playing as a proper unit, and this is now my main concern once again.

We lack a lot of everything, this is definitely not the manager's fault, but he's been here long enough to know these players now, and he talks about Goodison so passionately, and surely he must know that we are a crowd that feeds off energy.

My main frustration is why the management team don't seem to learn. Everyone knows that Richarlison is not a central striker so where do we regularly play him? Central striker. Why do we still sit back and let teams come onto us? With our defence, for God's sake!

I think I know now why we got Gray for £1.5 mil. Our attack is so ineffective, no end product at all, no wonder fans are now lobbying for Rondon.

I know our manager has a pretty useless bunch to work with, but he seems to me to demonstrate a tactical naivety bordering on the clueless at times with no indication that he has any idea how to put it right. The old cliche “You don't know what you're doing” springs to mind.

The perceived wisdom is that, if you continue to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome, it's a definition of madness! If that's the case, Goodison must be a giant “rubber room”

That was Leicester's best side who were in the mood, with an interchangeable midfield of Tielemans, Mendy, Maddison, Barnes and Dewsbury-Hall (who ran the show, how we could do with a player like him).

That midfield up against Delph and Allan, the type of players that they can't play against – quick, clever, comfortable on the ball – we shouldn't have stood a chance and it proved in the first 20 minutes.

For that we need to give huge credit for the way we got ourselves back in the game. Despite the missed opportunities, this was a point gained tonight, it's a shame we couldn't grind out results like this against West Ham, Aston Villa, Wolves etc.

I think it says a lot about Gomes and Doucouré (maybe Van de Beek) when Delph is the only recognised central midfielder on the pitch in the second. These players have obviously let Frank down many times recently, in effort alone (Doucoure at Burnley).

It's a big move dropping these players when we are in the position we are but I think Frank deserves credit for this and he's learned if we go down it's with players he can rely on, he doesn't suffer fools and it seems to be working. I can see 10/11 players leaving, available for transfer or out of contract in the summer.

I thought Iwobi and Mykolenko didn't put a foot wrong last night. If we stay up, Iwobi deserves huge credit and will be a big part of this, never injured, has played almost every position over the last few seasons, been hammered, week-in & week-out, but has stood up and I for one couldn't be happier for him.

Coleman fantastic, Dele was effective and needs to start going forward and I think Rondon made a claim for the remaining games to come with Richarlison playing off him and we go direct to get this season out the way.

Godfrey, a disaster waiting to happen though, have you ever seen a defender more uncomfortable on the ball? The amount of times he rolls it back to Pickford or to Mina to make a decision for him, he's not a leader and we need as many as we can get at the minute.

I agree with practically everything in your post, especially about Godfrey taking the easy option every time. I would love to see the stats as to how often he passes back to Pickford or his CB partner. There were times last night were he could have carried the ball forward which would mean their midfield had to engage then that creates space for him to pass to our midfield or Mykolenko. I know there are times when nothing is on passing square or back is the only option but in Godfreys case it looks like its the only option.
I think another dilemma for Lampard is how we get more bodies forward when we attack while playing Allan and Delph together in midfield. Neither has the pace to join the attack and then get back so its very rare either are near the opponents box, which severely limits our attacking options. I think everyone can see that Rondon has to play as the main striker and allow for Richarlison to play wide or just behind Rondon.

I also think he has to find a role for Alli, we know he has goals in his locker, something that Gomes, Doucoure, Allan, Delph and Iwobi don't have. Plus our front 3 that started arent scoring many between them.

Everton were poor to start with, a typical after-the-break performance. Leicester had been prepared well. Frank was a bit naive with his selection and initial tactics. Everton managed to hold on, improving as the game went on. The substitutions were right and played their part in changing the game, giving Everton the edge. Richarlison, after his efforts, deservedly got a crucial goal. .

Lyndon, you are so right that this was an important result. I would take a point from that game any day.

If that last gasp goal, that point, is the one that keeps us up, I would not begrudge Alli one penny of his wages. They're not our problem, they're the bean counter's problem.

That may prove to be a very important point grabbed from nowhere and it was good play from Alli.

But then with 3 wins away from home we would be in a better place. We have to hope we can gain what we have not achieved so far this year, and that is wins or at least a point away from home.

Also, the "five opposition players within 3 metres, I'd better pass to the Everton player standing right next to me"; "they've got half a dozen players practically on our penalty area line, let's try to play it out from the back, slowly"

Fortunately, Richarlison applied the principle that "I may be having a really shitty match but, if I keep having a go and don't hide, I may get lucky".

Also, Iwobi has finally started playing good aggressive football to his strengths, Gordon is delighted to be in the first team and hasn't worked out he's supposed to wander about for most of the game, and Pickford remains the best goalkeeper in the Premier League by a street.

Having watched the "Helen Keller plays in goal" display for Man City vs Liverpool, I think the one position we actually have excellent cover is in goal.

Pickford, as I noted above, is better than any other goalkeeper I've seen this year, with the possible exception of Begovic. What a pity we haven't got a collection of bench-warmers of similar standing for any other position.

Burnley have won 2-0 and now have a better goal difference than Everton. We now need to get something at Mordor and a cup of Tea won't do!! Wolves will need to do us a big favour, if we don't do ourselves a favour.