A Creeping Sense of Inevitability

Aston Villa 3 - 2 Everton

With the collapse against Bournemouth before the international break still painfully embedded in the psyche, nothing felt more inevitable than Everton giving up another two goal lead to lose 3-2 for a second success game this afternoon.

That sense only intensified when Dominic Calvert-Lewin spurned a gilt-edge chance to restore Everton’s two-goal cushion, but made a mess of a one-on-one chance with Emiliano Martinez. The striker would go on to rattle the crossbar with another excellent opportunity to salvage a draw while Aston Villa’s cutting edge and superior finishing carried the day for Unai Emery.

It took a world-class strike from Jhon Durán to complete a turnaround from Villa that felt almost unavoidable when Olly Watkins rose easily above Michael Keane in the 37th minute to halve Everton’s advantage. True to their new-found status as a Champions League outfit, Emery’s men looked like a team coached to be comfortable on the ball, the move it with purpose and utilise the flanks — the one ruled on the afternoon by ex-Blue Lucas Digne especially — to ruthlessly expose the visitors’ frailties at the back.

By contrast, Sean Dyche’s side often treat the ball like a hot potato, something to either be dispensed with as quickly as possible or so uncomfortable to possess that they end up giving it away too easily in dangerous areas. That was certainly true of an embarrassingly one-sided first quarter of an hour where, for all Dyche’s selection challenges in defence, Everton should have been a good deal more competitive in other areas for a team that effectively finished 12th last season.

Yet, thanks to the tenacity of Dwight McNeil and his precious ability to catch out an opposition goalkeeper with an early release on an accurate shot, the winger’s penchant for a pin-point set-piece delivery and Calvert-Lewin’s aerial prowess, Everton somehow found themselves two goals to the good for the second match in succession.

Of course, against Bournemouth, they reached that strong position with half an hour to go and still held it, against inferior opposition Villa, with 87 minutes on the clock before collapsing in spectacularly ugly fashion. Having to either hold or improve on that position for more than hour against a top-four side is a decidedly tall order but in both cases, you’d expect any Premier League side to get something out of the game. Indeed, the travelling Evertonians would have gladly taken a point before kick-off; they’d have snapped your hand off for one when Watkins reduced Villa’s deficit well before half-time because, to a man and woman, they knew what was coming.

This was a game with so many narratives running through it: Everton’s failure to address the full-back positions over the summer; Calvert-Lewin doubling his tally for the campaign yet still profligate in front of goal; the poverty of the game-management from the players; and Dyche’s reactive approach that saw his belatedly turn to Jake O’Brien and a back five only once the lead had been wiped out by Watkins’s brace.

That the winner was an absolutely world-class bolt from the blue seemed to only underline the gulf in quality on the pitch between two clubs who were in similarly down-trodden circumstances when Villa hired Steven Gerrard in November 2021 and Everton opted for his England midfield team-mate Frank Lampard the following January, relative novice head coaches both. Having course-corrected from their egregious error, the Villans have, of course, only moved upwards towards riches under Emery; the Toffees, crippled by the colossal and chaotic fiscal mismanagement of the Farhad Moshiri regime, have been forced to cut their cloth over and over and the result is a squad threadbare in places, managed by a coach who has never graduated beyond the footballing equivalent of rags.

The departure from the fray after just 25 minutes of Vitalii Mykolenko, an adequate, lower-half Premier League full-back when fully fit and at the best of times, merely underlined Everton’s predicament. Ashley Young, who, along with Jack Harrison, had already been exploited by Digne a few times to that point, was switched to left-back and James Garner was preferred to 20-year-old Roman Dixon to play out of position at right-back.

His relative unfamiliarity with the role (despite having played there before for both Everton and England’s Under-21s) was brutally exposed for Villa’s first goal, as Digne took advantage of an ocean of space to clip a cross to the back post where Watkins easily out-jumped Michael Keane with Jordan Pickford typically lacking in dominance of his six-yard box.

That was the beginning of a shift in momentum after what had turned, for around 15 minutes, into an effective away Everton performance. McNeil had helped render Amadou Onana’s reunion with the Toffees since his big-money summer move somewhat painful — literally and figuratively — as he robbed him of the ball outside his box, dribbled his way to the edge of the box and beat Martinez with a low shot that crept inside the far post.

And Calvert-Lewin had underscored both the importance of his fitness and his threat from set-pieces when McNeil dropped a free-kick onto his head deep in Villa’s area and he nodded beyond the goalkeeper in the 27th minute.

You desperately wanted to believe otherwise but Villa’s recovery in the 36th and eventual triumph felt almost pre-ordained at that point. They began the second half the same way they had the first — on the front foot, moving through the opposition midfield with ease as Idrissa Gueye and Tim Iroegbunam struggled to cope at times — and it took an excellent stop from Pickford to deny Morgan Rogers and an impressive block by Garner to divert the follow-up from Jacob Ramsey into Watkins to stop them wiping out the Blues’ lead before five minutes of the second period had elapsed.

And yet Everton remained dangerous, particularly given the home side’s high line and Calvert-Lewin really should at least have given Video Assistant Referee, David Coote a decision to make when he beat the offside trap and raced onto McNeil’s slide-rule pass. Unfortunately, he chose not to shoot early and bungled the attempt to round Martinez as Ezri Konsa recovered to toe it to safety inches past his own post.

Within four minutes, it was 2-2. Youri Tielemans swept a deep pass to the edge Everton’s box where Digne was accelerating past Harrison but the Toffees winger’s attempt to intercept was simply a toe-poke to Watkins who simply allowed the ball to drop before side-footing past Pickford.

Watkins, who was yet to score this season prior to today, could have had a hat-trick as John McGinn split Everton’s defence to find Rogers but his low centre skidded across goal ahead of the striker’s lunge. Then, Ian Maatsen followed the well-trodden path behind the visitors’ right-back position to cut the ball back for an unmarked Watkins but he steered it wide of the target.

In between, Dyche had seen fit to throw on Jake O’Brien and Orel Mangala but neither could prevent what Durán had up his sleeve. The forward, who had only been on the pitch for seven minutes, collected a pass some 30 yards out and just left fly with a shot that arced away off the outside of his foot and into the top corner with Pickford diving helplessly as it crashed into the net.

Still, there was a chance that Everton could have left the Midlands with something as McNeil once again delivered a measured pass for Calvert-Lewin to chase and shrug off Pau Torres but he scooped his shot off the face of the crossbar. One of those margins that Dyche bemoaned his team are falling the wrong side of at the moment.

If you look at the scoreline alone, he might have a point but Everton have now shipped 13 goals in four matches, already reaching 25% of last season’s tally, and given up two-goal leads in successive games. Only Bournemouth have done that in the Premier League era and until today the Blues hadn’t lost their first four league games since 1958.

There was nothing fine about the margins of the opening-day defeat to Brighton, nor the drubbing at Tottenham, and the fact remains that most Premier League teams with mid-table aspirations should be able to hang on to at least get a point after being 2-0 up against almost any team in the division. Fans highlight the burgeoning statistics that highlight the number of goals conceded when Keane is in the defence and lament the absence of Jarrad Branthwaite and pray for his swift return now that he has resumed training but it can’t be down to one player in either instance.

Just as they did against the Cherries last time out, Everton remained far too open and insisted on turning this contest into an end-to-end basketball match at times when the prudent thing would have been to sit in for periods and try to frustrate Villa with a low block. They again got punished by balls deep into their area before Durán produced his moment of magic. Villa move back into the top four; Everton remain rock bottom, with their desperation for points becoming more acute by the week.

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