Plus ça change…

Everton 0 - 1 Fulham

A new season kicking off under a different manager than the one who began the last with hope rather than optimism this time that the club won’t be mired in a relegation dogfight come May… There has been change at Everton over the past 12 months and yet so much remains depressingly the same.

No Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the match-day squad, no meaningful alternative up front in his stead, incoming attacking reinforcements not yet signed or not available, and, not surprisingly, a number of gilt-edged chances spurned in a match that Sean Dyche is, no doubt, still wondering how the Blues lost. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The more things change at Goodison Park, the more they seem to stay the same.

The manager pointed to the mystifying decision by Stuart Attwell — no change on that front; he remains a pitifully poor referee — to penalise James Tarkowski for a "foul" on Bernd Leno after the Fulham goalkeeper went over the top of him, spilled the ball and Michael Keane knocked it into the empty net.

But even without that controversial decision, Everton should have won this match comfortably. Fulham dominated the possession, as Marco Silva would surely have expected, but they looked a shadow of the side that made such an impressive start to 2022-23 and they didn’t muster a shot on target until substitute Bobby de Cordova-Reid converted Andreas Pereira’s centre in the 73rd minute.

It was the Toffees who created almost all the chances — they would finish with a higher xG without scoring than any team did in a game during all of last season — but would count the cost of their profligacy in front of goal, with Abdoulaye Doucouré passing up the chance to either score or lay on an early opener, Neal Maupay failing to convert either of two good chances and Nathan Patterson somehow contriving to hit the bar with Everton’s best chance of the second half.

This was by far a better performance than the one against the same opposition in April when the stakes were considerably higher. Everton were slick and purposeful at times, pressing tenaciously, seizing on the opposition’s mistakes and looking to cut through them in transition.

But the mistakes of last season haven’t been learned or addressed. Which is why Maupay, who missed a great chance to score what would have been only his second goal in a Blue jersey in the same fixture last term, was leading the line looking just as unsuitable an option in that role as ever.

One argument will go that he was at least in the right place in the right time for opportunities in front of goal; another might credit Leno with two very good point-blank saves; but the end result was that the Frenchman’s goal drought goes on and Everton began the season as they did the last — with a home defeat to West London opposition and no points on the board following a winnable game.

With Calvert-Lewin having only managed 90 minutes of pre-season football and Youssef Chermiti having only had his protracted move from Sporting CP yesterday, Dyche deployed the unreliable Maupay at centre-forward in front of Doucouré while James Garner and Alex Iwobi lined up on the flanks, Ashley Young made his debut at left-back and Keane was paired with Tarkowski at the back.

A brilliant fifth-minute attack by the hosts set the tone for the first half as Amadou Onana threaded Doucouré in between the two visiting centre-halves and with Maupay to his left and Garner to his right, he had simple options that would surely have guaranteed a goal but he elected to shoot himself and Bernd Leno got a crucial toe to the ball to divert it wide.

Two more counter-attacks midway through the first period provided shooting opportunities for Iwobi but his first was deflected behind and the second he dragged narrowly wide from 18 yards out before Tarkowksi couldn’t get enough purchase on Garner’s free-kick to trouble Leno after the former had been chopped down by Willian’s ugly stamp.

Everton retained the upper hand as the half wore on and when Doucouré nodded Iwobi’s cross from the left down to Maupay, the Frenchman was denied at point-blank range by the keeper. When the ball was hooked back into the box and Keane knocked the loose ball home, Attwell called play back, the official determining that Tarkowski had fouled Leno when it appeared as though he had simply stood his ground as the keeper jumped over him.

Nevertheless, the Blues continued to carve out chances without being threatened at all at the other end, Doucouré testing Leno with a strong shot after superb work by Iwobi and an interception by the Nigerian allowing the Mali international to play Maupay in but he was foiled by the goalkeeper again from close quarters as he tried to prod the ball home.

The second half began in scrappier and more even fashion than had been the pattern in the first but the Cottagers soon began to threaten as Saša Lukić bounced a half-volley wide off a corner and Raul Jimenez saw a shot come back off the base of the upright with what was his last contribution before being replaced by Aleksandar Mitrovic just before the hour mark.

But it was Everton who really should have taken the lead — and, perhaps, the points as a result — when Iwobi fired goal-wards, Leno could only push it into the path of Patterson at the back post and the defender, with almost entire goal to aim at, planted a first-time effort onto the crossbar instead.

Four minutes later, after Harry Wilson had fizzed an effort inches over at the other end, it was 1-0 Fulham. Marco Silva’s men had cut their way through Everton’s midfield, dragged Keane out of position outside his box so when the ball was played down the channel to Pereira, the hosts were short-handed in the centre when the Belgian hooked it across the face of goal and De Cordova-Reid just had to tap in at the back stick.

De Cordova-Reid volleyed a gilt-edged chance to kill the contest over the bar four minutes later and Mitrovic’s goal-bound was blocked, legally according to Video Assistant Referee Anthony Taylor, by Tarkowski’s arm either side of Dyche’s decision to throw Lewis Dobbin on in place of the unfortunate Garner and switch Iwobi to the right flank.

And Iwobi came close to levelling in the 85th minute when he arrived to meet Young’s cross but Leno beat it behind at his near post while Tarkowski had the last chance to salvage a point but his stooping header flashed across goal and narrowly missed the far post.

There was a frustrating familiarity about the way this game played out — Everton having the upper hand early on, failing to take their chances and then seeing the opposition come into the contest in the second half before picking the Blues off with the only goal they would need on the day.

Dyche, as is customary, waited until the 70-odd-minute mark to make his first change and while he was unfortunate that Fulham scored on the very next attack following Arnaut Danjuma’s introduction for Maupay, he later opted for Lewis Dobbin as an attacking wide player rather than a genuine centre-forward option like Tom Cannon when Everton were chasing the game.

Unless things do click in the transfer market over the next three works, Calvert-Lewin comes back for an extended run of fitness and/or Chermiti hits the ground running as a teenage revelation, you get the feeling that this air of depressing predictability is going to hang around the Blues all season. The next three weeks have the potential to be very significant.

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