Two more points washed away in the Midlands rain

Leicester City 1 - 1 Everton

There are games — most of them, truth be told — that demonstrate just how difficult a league the Premier League can be. This wasn’t one of them. Everton were a goal to the good and in control of the destiny of their first points of the season but they allowed the match to slip away, along with victory against a team that, on this evidence, look set for a struggle to retain their top-flight status this season,.

Part of it was due to the conditions which bordered on monsoonal at times and helped disrupt the Blues’ first-half rhythm, but a lot of it was, once again, down to the substitutions and game management of Sean Dyche, who withdrew his two most effective attacking outlets in the second half.

Iliman Ndiaye scored a wonderful 12th-minute opener and had, admittedly, faded from the contest by its closing stages but his manager opted for preserving a point over trying to win by taking the Senegal international off and moving Abdoulaye Doucouré forward.

It was his earlier change that contributed to Everton giving up the lead, though, as the team increasingly sat off following his withdrawal and invited pressure. Jesper Lindstrøm, a player who surely would have been warming the bench had Jack Harrison not left training early feeling unwell on Thursday, had been causing Leicester problems all afternoon, with only the end product missing on an otherwise hugely encouraging first Premier League start.

But the Dane’s withdrawal after an hour, arguably 10 to 15 minutes too soon, felt awfully predictable, particularly from the moment Dyche bawled the Dane out when he put the ball into touch in front of him early in the second half and was ordered over to the right side. Lindstrøm was duly withdrawn in favour of Harrison in the 61st minute and Everton seemed to lose all their momentum after that. 13 minutes later, they lost their lead thanks to yet more dreadful defending at an opposition corner.

With mounting pressure on his shoulders following four straight defeats and a miserable Carabao Cup exit on Tuesday, Dyche bemoaned the challenges he has faced in his time as Everton boss. Those include selection headaches like the one he faced today, with seven players out, the most important being at full-back where Vitalii Mykolenko was again missing through illness and Seamus Coleman and Nathan Patterson remain sidelined.

Despite the youngster’s promising displays when used this season, Dyche plumped for James Garner over Roman Dixon and, just like at Villa Park a week ago, it proved to be a dubious decision. Despite having played at right-back for England U21s, Garner is not cut out for the role and he struggled again this afternoon on that side of defence.

Pleasingly, though, Orel Mangala, who looked questionable on his full debut against Southampton in the cup, had an impressive first hour or so alongside Doucouré, who was also first class in that time, before both melted away in the later stages of the game along with Everton’s composure and resilience.

Mangala was enjoying the freedom of the King Power Stadium in the first half, pulling strings and progressing the Blues forward as they made a strong start. Lindstrøm really should have opened his account in the fourth minute when the often electric Ndiaye whipped an inviting ball across the box but, perhaps partially unsighted by Dominic Calvert-Lewin in front of him, he could only steer a volley wide of goal.

The visitors didn’t have to wait long for their goal, however, and it came from a glorious, slide-rule pass from Ashley Young which Ndiaye collected just inside the penalty area before jinking to his right and screwing a lot shot in off the upright.

Lindstrøm tested Mads Hermansen with a powerful shot at one end while Jordan Pickford almost embarrassed himself in the worsening conditions by flapping Stephy Mavididi’s cross onto his own post, just managing to keep it out but, in the main, the visitors had the upper hand.

Calvert-Lewin should have been awarded a free-kick by the shockingly poor referee, Darren England, when he was bundled over by Victor Kristiansen before Lindstrøm sliced wide of the target after being played in neatly by Mangala and Dwight McNeil dragged a promising chance horribly wide.

With the hosts having created next to nothing and only having a weak Wilfried Ndidi shot to show for their efforts in the first period, it should have been a case of Everton simply continuing to do what they had been doing and pushing for the cushion of a second goal.

The continuing deluge from the skies that delayed the resumption of the game after the interval seemed to affect them more than Leicester, though. Ndiaye’s superb dribbling took him past the last man again but he smashed his shot high and wide while Lindstrøm, having knocked the ball around Wout Faes, almost served the former Marseille man a second goal on a plate but his attempted square ball took a crucial deflection off a recovering defender.

In between, the Foxes had started to come into the contest more and more. Jordan Ayew hooked a bouncing ball over his shoulder and over the bar and Harry Winks had failed to test Pickford with an attempted curler but the McNeil-DCL combination almost paid dividends at the other end. The former put the striker in by splitting the defence but, while he hit his shot well across the keeper, Hermansen was equal to it and pushed it aside.

With 23 minutes of the 90 to go, Caleb Okoli sounded the warning bell when he popped up unmarked in front of goal from a corner but couldn’t keep his header under the bar. Six minutes later, it was 1-1 when Facundo Buonanotte swung in another corner from the same side, Michael Keane and James Tarkowski jumped into each other, the ball came off Ndidi and to Mavididi who fired it into the ground and high into the net.

With Dyche’s side having lost their way and become increasingly ragged and panicky in possession, especially after Ndiaye had been withdrawn with 10 minutes to go, rather than measures taken to get the former back into a contest he had largely disappeared from, it was Steve Cooper’s men who almost snatched all three points late on.

Ndidi belted a shot wide when he really should have worked Pickford at least and Buonanotte had Evertonian hearts in mouths when his goal-bound shot struck Keane on its way to goal and the ball was eventually cleared to safety.

Quite apart from two more points tossed away — that’s eight and counting so far in the last three games — the most disappointing part of the afternoon was that Everton played some really nice stuff at times and should have put a desperately poor Leicester to the sword.

Whether Dyche sees it that way — put your money on Harrison, who was pretty dreadful off the bench today, starting against Crystal Palace next weekend! — Lindstrøm made a strong case for his inclusion in the starting XI going forward. The on-loan winger still looks a little rusty and needs to get to grips with the physicality of the Premier League but his neat touches, awareness, pace and threat on the break are valuable attributes in a team lacking many of those qualities.

Ndiaye, of course, is the man the team can turn to for a bit of magic and a rapier-like finish, while Mangala showed for most of the match that he can provide much-needed competition in the middle along with Doucouré, and Young was a man-of-the-match contender on the left side of defence. Key missing pieces like Jarrad Branthwaite and a natural right-back in Nathan Patterson or Seamus Coleman can’t return soon enough, however.

In the meantime, it is imperative that Everton build on their first point of the campaign and the positive aspects of a performance that looked as though it was going to earn so much more.

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