Everton 0 - 3 Brighton

At last – the new season after weeks of boring internationals and cricket.

Up at 5:50 am and at the Taunton pick-up point for the stipulated 7:30 am. Just over 70 hopeful if not expectant West Country Blues piled onto a double-decker coach and we battled our way through heavy traffic to arrive at Stanley Park around 1:30 pm.

Just enough time to walk to the Harlech and enjoy a beer in the sun with Ian (our new chairman), Danny, Neil, Derek (he used to be a two-handicap golfer so I made a mental note never to get involved with him on a golf course), and the great sight of John McFarlane, looking fit and well for another season – he first went to Goodison in 1946!

My seat was in the Upper Bullens by the Gwladys Street corner flag and looking around shows just why we have to leave. How many coats of blue paint have been layered on to the ancient brickwork, I wonder? She is still a lovely sight!

The game started, scrapping for 10 minutes or so, then we started to get a foothold. Both sides hit the woodwork, we had a goal ruled out for offside, and it was apparent that Doucoure had not spent any time in the summer reading up on the offside rule. Surely no professional footballer should be so poor at keeping onside?

Our one new player who I will refer to as Tim was outstanding and was everything Onana was supposed to be but never was. Strong and aggressive, passing well, ghosting past opponents at will, and had a decent curler which just didn’t curl enough. I thought he looked shattered after an hour and his play became scrappy but that will improve with game time.

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Their goals were preventable – certainly in the second half, we were wide open in just about every area of the pitch. Gana was all over the place apart from where he should have been and our ancient defenders just couldn’t seem to cope.

Why play four defenders and defensive midfielders over 30 years old when one is a winger (Young) and one wasn’t rated last season by the manager and didn’t get hardly any game time? If O’Brien needs experience, he won’t get it on the bench. Play the lad and let him learn.

If Dyche had been given just one new player by Thelwell, he’d use that as an excuse why we were so poor, lamenting the lack of new blood. So Kevin gives him four (excluding Jack Harrison) and Sean – yes, you guessed – plays just one… and two of the others didn’t even get on as subs!!

There was a mass walk-out after an hour which baffles me. You go there to support your team, win or lose, and leaving with half-an-hour to go is a concept that bewilders me.

The booing at the end I can understand though it’s not for me. Dyche has to accept that his own performance yesterday and that of about nine of his players was poor and the supporters are entitled to question his decisions and understand if possible the reasoning behind them.

My ratings:

Pickford 6 – little to do apart from collect the ball from the net.

Young 4 – it’s all been said.

Tarkowski 5 – pulled around way too easily.

Keane 4 – good passing but seemed isolated.

Iroegbunam 8 – excellent til he tired.

Gueye 3 – very poor.

McNeil 3 – not in the game and too easy to stop by showing him inside from left to right.

Harrison 7 – looked sharp though crossing must improve.

Doucouré 3 – he is not a Number 10.

Calvert-Lewin 5 – some decent hold-up play but he really does need us to buy someone to support him… Oh, hang on – there are two new guys on the bench who might help him out!

This was very predictable and one fears there is worse to come next week at Spurs. Three at the back rarely works for us and our best hope is to get a new guy in at full-back before Saturday. Problem is Sean doesn’t like playing the new guys… so Holgate it is!!

This looks like last season all over again, waiting for a really bad start before playing younger guys rather than the oldies.

Home by 11:30 pm – uneventful journey!!

 

Reader Comments (10)

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Kunal Desai
1 Posted 18/08/2024 at 15:45:12
It's a tough ask being an evertonian nothing really has gone right for us for around 40 years now bar one FA cup final. Every season hope springs eternal optimism but the reality is that we are mediocre football club in every aspect and that has been the case in the premier league era and beyond. The hope is next season we move into a new stadium and with 'hopefully' new owners that genuinely see a direction and plan in taking this club forward. We will in the non too distant future revisit some memorable times. It will take time. In the meantime we all get another year older.
Barry Rathbone
2 Posted 18/08/2024 at 15:55:20
I think the masses leaving long before the final whistle confirms what I've thought for ages - it isn't hope but dutiful masochism that draws attendees. Lord knows how this is going to end but having Coleman and Young as mainstay full backs and midfielders who can't control a ball plus the bluntest spear point of an attack in DCL probably disastrously.

Dyche signed his own death warrant not via the result but getting snippy with fans leaving. Just needs to go on a long term winning streak now to rectify the situation - bye Sean.

Tony Abrahams
3 Posted 18/08/2024 at 16:21:32
I think calling it dutiful masochism, is massively disrespecting the 70 people who were on Dave’s coach, for their 16 hour day yesterday Barry.

Incredible support, Everton have got some of the most loyal and dedicated fans imaginable, so the manager has got to be careful with his choice of words sometimes.

I felt for Danny, who sat next to me yesterday, because he to was due to arrive home from yesterday’s game around midnight, and he was telling me that he met two dedicated Evertonians on the train home last night, who attend most games all the way from Brighton.

A poor result but I expected no more when I received a text from an old ToffeeWeb lunatic who was slaughtering the manager for his team selection at 2pm, because certain Evertonians know a lot more about the club, than a lot of people who represent the club.

Those who learn the quickest get on the most was an old phrase Dyche will have heard Archie Gemmill mutter hundreds of times and this definitely applies to our manager right now imo

David Cooper
4 Posted 18/08/2024 at 16:23:10
In nearly every other walk of sporting life just because you were poor last year doesn’t mean you will be poor this year. Be it individual or team sport we face our opponents with the score at 0-0 when we start or in the case of the Premier league we all start on 0 points. However EFC might be the exception!
Goodison looks the same with a few licks of paint, our long suffering supporters fill the ground with hope of better times ahead.
For the first 20 minutes we created havoc with Brighton pissing around at the back oops passing around…but no matter how close they came to shooting themselves in the foot, we managed not to make them pay. Then Brighton broke away and we were behind. Only then did I notice that Brighton were playing 4 players - Pedro, Wellbeck, Minteh and Mitoma who all knew how to score whereas we had one supposedly.
HT came and went and immediately we got a pen. But we know what our relationship with VAR is and despite Hooper seeing and giving the pen was talked out of it by Darren England. You knew then that nothing had changed. Wellbeck converted a mistake by Gana, Young showed his age and experience by getting a red. We hardly touched the ball. Number 3 went in by the sub and could have been 4.
By this time we had both Holgate and Keane on the field which shows how poor our squad is. Can’t be bothered to give ratings. As a team we were even WORSE than last year in our darkest days. Only ne boy Tim showed any hope and Harrison did what he does without an end promise.
We know Dyche and company won’t change. We survived last year because it worked out in the end, but to start this season and you can understand why Goodison was empty at the end.
Yes when we won at the end last year we had almost all our good/better players now we are missing Branthwaite who covered up many mistakes on the left and Myko could have done with his covering and backed up Tarks who looked very unhappy at the end.
We are now bottom. Not sure we ever reached such illustrious heights last season. Our record at Spurs leaves me thinking we will be there next week on 0 pints and a -6 goal difference.
Dyche has a whole load of stuff to sort out this week. Most of which is down to him when it comes to team selection. Hopefully Branthwaite returns and Holgate and Keane start and stay on the subs bench. Hopefully we see some different faces start the game But I doubt it.
Could we be WORSE than last year?
Robert Tressell
5 Posted 18/08/2024 at 16:38:19
Good report, Dave. I suppose we all enter a new season hoping that a spark will somehow be ignited by new signings or the promotion of youth. Must have been a sickening watch for match going folk.

I think the hope and accompanying dashed expectations are probably worse for Evertonians than many fans. In Ancelotti's last season we were ranked by Transfermarkt as having the 8th best squad in the division. After the extreme cost cutting since, we now have the 16th best squad. Through the careful development of young players, Brighton's 2nd XI would easily be a match for our 1st XI. With Patterson, Branthwaite, Garner and Coleman out injured, it was always going to be difficult.

Although we should of course keep hoping, the likely reality is that things will be very tough until the takeover is complete and funds are released to compete for players.

Dave Cashen
6 Posted 18/08/2024 at 16:44:36
"Dutiful masochism" ?

Talk about letting a bad day cloud your already clouded judgement.

Paul Tran
7 Posted 18/08/2024 at 16:45:37
I can understand why a lot of managers in all walks of life are loyal to those they know, those they trust, those who have previously delivered.

I can't understand it when the results aren't happening, where performances aren't happening, when it looks like the manager is looking for evidence of what he wants to see, rather than noticing what is actually happening.

The team Dyche picked yesterday will never regularly score goals. We finished safe because of a particularly good defence. Yesterday one defender was missing, three of them had shockers. It happens.

You can, and should, press and run all day. That's no substitute for pace, guile and attacking intent. All three were missing from the team sheet yesterday. Arguably all three were sitting on the bench. Against Brighton, not City.

Dyche lost me with that team selection yesterday. He'll get me back if he plays the players he was given to create and score, rather than the players we know can't.

Barry Rathbone
8 Posted 18/08/2024 at 16:56:09
Tony 3

Fans would have stayed if emboldened by "hope" especially for the first game.

Lost track of how many defeats I've seen at Goodison some of them the team still applauded off others not so glorious saw cushions flying from the stands in mountainous anger - this is very different.

Tony Abrahams
9 Posted 18/08/2024 at 17:04:00
I knew you would come back and have more to say on the subject Barry, as I think of the words in my head and hum along to that old James Taylor classic, Fire & Rain!!

But I always think that I’ll see Everton win again💙

Seriously Barry, thanks mate because you have just reminded me how much I look forward to flying with a beer in my hand, whilst listening to a great collection of old musicians, and I’m getting away from Everton for a couple of weeks, which I’m sure proves your point!

Dave Cashen
10 Posted 18/08/2024 at 17:16:31
Yep it's different alright. Now there is a thirty thousand waiting list for season tickets.

People hoping to see glorious victories even though they know the current team is very poor. People who hope against hope that we will beat superior teams like we did against Liverpool couple of months ago People who will celebrate those rare occasions for months. People who dream tomorrow will be another day. People who love the club. People who will never be swayed by relentless negativity spouted by attention seekers who are unlikely to block their path to a season ticket

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