Everton make nightmare start to Goodison's long farewell

Everton 0 - 3 Brighton

Everton kicked off the new season in the worst possible way, going down to 10 men and suffering a harrowing 3-0 defeat to Brighton in a fashion that has become all too familiar to the Grand Old Lady in recent years.

Yankuba Minteh, one that got away over the summer, created one goal for Kaoru Mitoma and Danny Welbeck and Simon Adingra added confidently-taken strikes to complete a convincing victory for the Seagulls while Ashley Young was sent off to compound the selection crisis at right-back.

The Blues had a goal chalked off for offside and a penalty award overturned in controversial circumstances but in the final reckoning it was an increasingly miserable performance and a result that doused the pre-match atmosphere with the cold water of stark reality. 

With four new signings in through the door this summer, two of them potentially exciting additions to the forward line, optimism was high among Evertonians filing into Goodison Park this afternoon for a positive start to the campaign.

Only Tim Iroegbunam made the starting XI, however — even then, only because of injury to James Garner — while Iliman Ndiaye, Jesper Lindstrøm and Jake O'Brien watched on from the bench as a customarily bright start from the Blues evaporated, their hopes of retrieving something from 2-0 down ultimately killed off by another brain-dead decision from the most experienced player on the pitch.

With Iroegbunam looking assured in the middle alongside Idrissa Gueye, Jack Harrison looking purposeful and hungry on the right and the front two of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Abdoulaye Doucouré harrying the visiting defence into errors, the signs were good early on that Everton could get the new campaign off to a positive start.

Harrison tested Jason Steele early, cutting onto his left foot and whipping a left-foot shot that the Brighton goalkeeper did well to palm away from goal, and the on-loan winger thought he'd got the hosts off to a flyer from the resulting corner.

Unfortunately, Harrison was flagged offside after turning Michael Keane's header past Steele and there was a belated flag from the referee' assistant  a few minutes later after referee Simon Hooperr waved away appeals from the visitors for a foul by James Tarkowski on Mitoma and Doucouré was played in behind the defence where he set up Dwight McNeil.

McNeil could only fire across goal and onto the far post before offside was given, though, and, back down the other end, Joao Pedro almost caught Jordan Pickford napping at the other end, his strong effort cannoning off the upright from the edge of the box.

Harrison missed the target with another left-footed shot, Tarkowski planted a set-piece header onto the roof of the net before Brighton finally began to sound the warning bells of what was to come after a quarter of an hour had elapsed.

Keane's sloppy pass allowed the Seagulls to swiftly counter-attack and Tarkowski did well to cut out Minteh's attempted cross, Keane himself then blocked a drive from Mitoma before a cheap turnover by Brighton gifted Iroegbunam the chance to open his account on his debut but he couldn't get the curl on the ball necessary to find the inside of the far post.

With 25 minutes gone, in a fashion eerily familiar to Everton's beleagured fans, Brighton scored against the run of play. Minteh easily powered past Vitalii Mykolenko and drove the ball across goal where Mitoma arrived ahead of Tarkowski to convert at the back stick.

Goodison erupted baying for a penalty just before half-time when Minteh clattered through Mykolenko in the act of clearing the ball off his toe but while, correctly, nothing was given, the winger took a blow to the head off the Ukrainian's elbow that saw Fabian Hürzeler take the decision to withdraw him as a precaution.

The final score and Everton's pathetic collapse in the second half suggest otherwise but Sean Dyche will, no doubt, point to the 47th minute as being a potential turning-point in the contest. Iroegbunam, arguably the only bright spot on an otherwise awful afternoon, pounced on another defensive error and Harrison fed Calvert-Lewin near the penalty spot.

When the striker appeared to be felled by Lewis Dunk and Hooper pointed to the spot, Everton's route back into the game opened up. That was until the referee was advised by VAR Darren England to check the back-up pitch-side monitor and he duly over-turned his decision... despite new Premier League directives to raise the bar to only very clearly obvious errors by the officials.

Nine minutes later, it was game over. Idrissa Gueye's weak lateral pass trying to find Iroegbunam was easily picked off and with every Blue shirt in the vacinity backing off, Welbeck took the invitation to drive into the box and despatch a tidy finish wide of Pickford and into the net.

Dyche finally removed Doucouré in favour of Ndiaye six minutes later but a mistake by Iroegbunam almost let Hürzeler's men in for a third but Pickford was quickly off his line to deny Mitoma.

It merely delayed the inevitable, however. Shortly afterwards, Young made the fateful decision to try and chest a high ball down in his own half and was easily dispossessed by Mitoma and then, as the Japanese accelerated away, the veteran dragged him back by the arm and was shown a straight red card for denial of a goalscoring opportunity.

Calvert-Lewin was withdrawn and replaced by Beto, Mason Holgate was needlessly introduced accompanied by boos for Harrison with five minutes left of the regulation 90, and Adingra completed Everton's misery with Brighton's third following another crisp, incisive move that carved through the home side's midfield.

A tortuous nine minutes of stoppage time was announced to groans from the smattering of Blues fans who remained and the Seagulls looked to have rubbed more salt into the wounds when Yasin Ayari put the ball in the net with his first touch off the bench but the goal was disallowed following a VAR review.

This was Everton's third successive losing start to a new season. More concerning was the fact that it appears as though almost nothing has changed, with the team's early promise giving way to predictable defeat once they had failed to make the breakthrough their early dominance promised.

It immediately puts Dyche under pressure, while there will be more calls for defensive reinforcements before the transfer deadline given Young's suspension and the lack of fitness blighting Seamus Coleman and Nathan Patterson. 

 

• Matchday updates and reaction

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