Season › 2024-25 › News Abject Everton somehow hand toothless Saints first win Lyndon Lloyd 02/11/2024 15comments | Jump to last Southampton 1 - 0 Everton Everton’s unconvincing five-game unbeaten run came to a shuddering halt on the south coast when they allowed bottom club Southampton to plunder the points late on. A lethargic contest between two poor teams ultimately pivoted in the 85th minute when substitute Beto crashed a header off the crossbar at one end before Adam Armstrong struck the winner at the other 27 seconds later. Beto had another potentially dramatic equaliser ruled out by a razor-thin offside decision by the Video Assistant Referee but, ultimately, Sean Dyche’s side fell well short of the levels required on the day. With Abdoulaye Doucouré struggling in the week with an unspecified injury but Dwight McNeil able to play despite not training all week because of a minor knee complaint, the former Burnley man took his usual place behind Dominic Calvert-Lewin while Michael Keane was, once again, preferred to Jarrad Branthwaite, Orel Mangala started in central midfield and Jesper Lindstrøm was handed a rare start on the right. Article continues below video content Just like the meeting between the two clubs in the Carabao Cup in September, the pattern of the match was established early, with Saints dominating the ball and trying to play their way through an erratic press while Everton were content to sit off and try to force mistakes. Lindstrøm prompted a comfortable save from Aaron Ramsdale with an early direct free-kick and the Dane later whipped in an excellent cross that just eluded Calvert-Lewin and Iliman Ndiaye in the middle but the visitors largely chased shadows for the first 20 minutes. Though he didn’t appear to properly recover from a knock inflicted by Kyle Walker-Peters, Ndiaye was, as expected, the Toffees’ most creative outlet, jinking his way past his man on one occasion to force a corner midway through the first half and then engineering space for a tame effort on goal shortly before half-time but, on the whole, it was woeful fare. Russell Martin’s side, meanwhile, looked more likely to affect the scoreline by giving the ball away in dangerous areas than through their efforts in front of Everton’s goal but they did briefly threaten late in the first period when Jordan Pickford had to get a glove on Armstrong’s low cross to divert it away from Ryan Manning at the back post and then when Taylor Harwood-Bellis planted a free header wide. If Dyche had instructed his men to do anything differently in the second half, there was precious little evidence of it, though Mangala did test Ramsdale five minutes after the restart with a good side-foot shot from the edge of the box that the keeper batted over the bar and onto the roof of his net. The pendulum then swung the way of the hosts who were starting to grow in confidence the more Everton illustrated their ineptitude going forward. James Tarkowski did well to deflect Harwood-Bellis’ goal-bound effort wide, Joe Aribo tried to take advantage of Ndiaye’s mistake in his own half but miscued his attempt to lob Pickford and Tyler Dibling’s cross from the right was just too much for Armstrong at the far post so he volleyed wide. Everton’s best spell of the match arguably came in the 20 minutes before they conceded the decisive goal. Keane had stayed forward following a corner and was in the box when Lindstrøm swung in an invitingly ball that the defender stretched to meet, his header searching out the inside of the post before Ramsdale made an excellent stop with his out-stretched glove. Then, after Beto was scythed down by Jan Bednarek, Lindstrøm forced another one-handed stop from the former Arsenal keeper with a sweeping direct free-kick and Jack Harrison, on for the struggling Ndiaye, ghosted in to meet McNeil’s deep delivery but could only touch it a yard wide. Beto had come on for Calvert-Lewin in a double change in the 62nd minute and he came within inches of making another heroic impact off the bench. Pulled back by Dibling with six minutes left on the clock, he was once again in the six-yard box as Tarkowski met the dead-ball delivery with a first-time knock back across goal. Unfortunately, the Portuguese’s header came back off the woodwork and Southampton immediately countered. In getting back, Vitalii Mykolenko had left the left-back area empty and when Yukinari Suguwara was played into the space behind McNeil, he was able to cross hard and low for Armstrong to bury a first-time shot into Pickford’s net. There was still time for more late drama, however, as Beto pulled down a ball over the top with sublime control before rattling a shot under Ramsdale and into the goal, with no flag from the linesman to signal offside. Unfortunately, VAR Matt Donohue adjudged the striker to have been fractionally offside and the goal was chalked off. Matchday updates and reaction Reader Comments (15) Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer () Derek Powell 1 Posted 02/11/2024 at 18:22:57 Get that baldy red out our club NOW Joe Hurst 2 Posted 02/11/2024 at 18:31:22 If we carry on being as poor as we currently are Bramley-Moore Dock will be the best stadium in the Championship! Ralph Basnett 3 Posted 02/11/2024 at 18:31:39 We are a rudderless ship that may end up sinking before we get to be waterside. The ginger twat has to go, I would rather have no one than this joker. If we are playing shit would we be that much worse with two up top, we will never know as this idiot seems to think the tactics he has used for the last two years are working.We play with one up front whilst most other clubs play with three up front and we wonder why we struggle in front of the goal? Mike Hayes 4 Posted 02/11/2024 at 18:45:38 Taxi time for this useless shite - dinosaur manager dinosaur football - no formation no tactics no use - dont give a shite if he kept us up hes been well paid - he needs to go now hes a fuckin embarrassment to the fans GO NOW DYCHE Jordan Wood 5 Posted 02/11/2024 at 18:50:02 Ralph, no teams play with 3 up front. DCL was supported by Ndiaye, Lindstrom and McNeil, similar to how other teams operate. Dave Lynch 6 Posted 02/11/2024 at 18:53:41 Im not having this is the weakest Everton team opinion...we've had plenty of weaker teams in the past but what we haven't had is a manager as negative, clueless and set in his ways as this one.He truly is the most inept bullshitter I've seen and heard in football. Bill Fairfield 7 Posted 02/11/2024 at 18:53:41 Be virtually the same team v West Ham no matter what. Be business as usual. Same crap tactics. One up front and little possession. Hoping they get lucky. Thats all he knows. James O'Connell 8 Posted 02/11/2024 at 19:08:17 Southampton are the worst team in the league. I never want to watch my team lose yet alone play like we have done especially in the last 2 games, and let's be honest the last god knows how many seasons. Our standards are slipping and have been for a long, long time. We accept staying up as enough to keep a manager in a job, first season maybe, not subsequent ones. Jim Bennings 10 Posted 02/11/2024 at 19:09:54 I don't care what anyone says, when you are a Premier League manager on £5 million quid a year managing Premier League players on thousands of pound per week, you SHOULD be able to get some semblance of playing style.He's been here almost 2 years and I don't think there's even a plan A.It's just try to bang the ball as high and long as hard as possible and get a corner or a set piece and try and nick something.It's absolutely abysmal, and this isn't a knee jerk response, it's a very level headed assessment of the shite we are being served up and told is the best available to us.Bollocks it is.Tell that to clubs like Bournemouth and Brighton who continue to churn out good managers, despite losing good players and many changes.Tell that to Nottingham Forest who have had Nuno Espirito Santo 12 months and already had changed the dynamic at that football club.We are sold a shite product every single year and told that we should expect nothing better.From day one this manager has spoken of relegation battles even despite finishing on effectively 48 points was it, last season, the first words you hear are survival, avoid relegation, struggles.This has been poor for far too long and some section of the fanbase will have you believe he's doing a great job, they isolate 5 games we had in April and choose to ignore that we didn't win a game of football between December and April last season.People say possession in football doesn't matter, well it doesn't as long as you actually win the game, but too often this surrendering of the ball to shite opponents is resulting in us losing those games.It's time for a change now.I'd give the job to Moyes until May and that should give us plenty of time to really work out where we need to be going as a club when we move to Bramley Moore Dock.The Friedkin takeover can't come soon enough, I just hope they are actually going to act and show some genuine ambition. Neil Lawson 11 Posted 02/11/2024 at 19:28:27 So, overwhelming support for DynoDyche !! How can you be so useless and still keep your job? Only in football. Any other walk of life you would be long gone with your P45. Get rid now. Lee Whitehead 12 Posted 02/11/2024 at 19:29:30 That was truly shocking !!!!Please please please - fuck off The ginger one Colin Glassar 13 Posted 02/11/2024 at 19:36:12 He has to go once the new ownership is settled. That means hes out before the transfer window opens. This team/squad isnt as bad as Dyche makes us look. If Dyche had a team of superstars hed still play this turgid, cowardly, feeble, timid, brainless, moronic, clueless, idiotic, mindless, boring shit that he serves up every game.Why do I say this? Because hes an extremely limited manager whose highest achievements in football are surviving relegation battles playing the above mentioned style of “football”.Stay or leave we will stay up this season, despite Dyche. But this is untenable in the medium-long term. The players will keep us up. Ralph Basnett 14 Posted 02/11/2024 at 19:51:04 Jordan, watch more football, all successful teams play with three up front, their Ida certain team across the park whose supporters take great pleasure in taking the pissand I believe that amongst other teams they have three of Salah, Gakpo, Jota, Nunez.City have Haaland, and two of too many to type,Utd Rashford, Garnacho Holland.Chelsea three of 42 players.Arsenal Martinelli Havertz,Sako.Some may call some of them wingers but are all direct threats to goal on their own, if needed all go down the middle and all seem to score! Kunal Desai 15 Posted 02/11/2024 at 20:01:16 Dyche the dinosaur do us a favour mate, get us to that 30 point mark as soon as possible so you can fuck off out of this club once and for all. Derek Taylor 16 Posted 02/11/2024 at 20:07:04 AM I alone in believing our players aren't very good ?The sole task of the manager is to hold the fort until the Club's ownership changes.Only then will Dyche's future be determined. Meanwhile we can only expect him to do his best to save us from relegation !'Rock and a hard place syndrome,' me thinks. Add Your Comments In order to post a comment, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site. » Log in now Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and Talking Points submissions across the site. How to get rid of these ads and support TW © ToffeeWeb