Lyndon Lloyd 15/01/2025 17comments  |  Jump to last
Everton 0 - 1 Aston Villa

There was to be no fairytale return to Goodison Park for David Moyes in his first match back in charge of Everton as Ollie Watkins punished a defensive mistake to plunder the points for Aston Villa.

Moyes was back on the touchline as the Blues’ boss after a 12-year absence but while his new charges showed plenty of willingness and effort, they desperately lacked the quality needed to salvage anything from the game.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin missed a sitter at the death while Everton felt they should have had a penalty, either for an arm around Calvert-Lewin’s neck or a shove on substitute Jesper Lindstøm but referee Sam Barrott capped a poor display of officiating by ignoring the pleas for a spot-kick.

With only a few days to prepare for the visit of the Villans, Moyes opted for a very familiar line-up, with Ashley Young coming back in for Nathan Patterson and Abdoulaye Doucouré taking up his usual role behind the striker.

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Not surprisingly, there was little change in terms of the team’s attacking effectiveness; instead it was the visitors who carried all the early threat with Amadou Onana seeing a shot deflected wide and another miss from 25 yards while Jordan Pickford palmed a Morgan Rogers effort behind.

Watkins should have opened the scoring after 17 minutes when Young gave him the ball with an awful back-pass but the England striker was closed down by his international goalkeeping team-mate, Jordan Pickford, and swept the ball past the far post.

At the other end, Calvert-Lewin had Everton’s first real sight of goal when Vitalii Mykolenko played a lovely ball down the channel and the striker drove forward before whipping a left-footer across Emiliano Martinez’s goal and just past the upright.

12 minutes later, Doucouré arrived in the box to meet the Ukrainian’s low cross but his prodded effort was too close to the keeper, who made the save while Pickford stopped Boubacar Kamara’s low drive for Villa.

Everton’s best chance fell to Calvert-Lewin once more but he couldn’t get enough purchase on his shot which hit the prone Martinez before Kamara hooked it away off his goal line while Rogers spurned a gilt-edged opportunity to send Unai Emery’s men into half-time a goal up when he lashed wide with the goal almost at his mercy.

After surviving another scare shortly after the restart when Rogers hooked a loose ball Pickford’s goal, sloppiness in the middle of the pitch by Everton gifted Villa the lead. Jarrad Branthwaite's loose pass was seized on by Rogers who sent the striker away to calmly slot past Pickford.

The Blues generally struggled to make headway against a dogged Villa defence after that but they did grow into the contest as the second period wore on.

After either the referee nor the VAR had seen fit to award the Toffees a penalty, Villa made two desperate clearances from goalmouth meleés but that was as close as Moyes’s side came to levelling the game until stoppage time.

That’s when Orel Mangala forced a save from Martinez with a shot from the angle and, a minute later, Lindstrøm appeared to have served the equaliser on a plate for Calvert-Lewin but the striker fluffed his lines, scooping the ball over the bar from just six yards out.

 

Reader Comments (17)

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Jay Timothy
1 Posted 15/01/2025 at 22:27:38
I can't wait for the anti-Moyes brigade to chime in. Not sure what he is supposed to do given the lack of talent at his disposal.

I'm hoping that by Sunday he will have seen enough to know that Doucoure and Harrison will never be able to contribute to the team.

Josh Horne
2 Posted 15/01/2025 at 22:32:39
Jay, how about not pick the same players that have been stinking out Goodison Park all season?

Too much to expect?

Kunal Desai
3 Posted 15/01/2025 at 22:40:29
I think we get a point here with a half-decent striker on the books.

I can't wait to see which club Calvert-Lewin ends up at. At best he will be a squad player getting 5 or 10 minutes here and there.

The likes of Harrison and Doucoure should not be starting. Get them benched permanently as both offer very little.

On to Spurs. They are there for the taking.

Frank Sheppard
4 Posted 15/01/2025 at 22:43:54
Parts of the performance better, but same old, same old issues when it comes to creating chances and scoring, against a team that hadn't kept a clean sheet in 11 away games.

Some big decisions to make, and quick.

Paul Ferry
5 Posted 15/01/2025 at 22:45:59
Genius choice of photo; inspired. It sums everything up perfectly.

A stumped bewildered Moyes and a canny almost mocking and gleaming Unai Emery.

Ed Prytherch
6 Posted 15/01/2025 at 22:50:05
A few positives. Some good pressing up the field and plenty of effort. TFG now know that we need some new blood in attacking positions.

Moyes has hopefully realized just how bad Jack Harrison is and will cease from starting him.

With more balanced refereeing, we may have picked up a point.

Mike Hayes
7 Posted 15/01/2025 at 23:10:19
The only team that's “there for the taking" is Everton – if they were to play San Marino, they'd get beaten.

Time to get shut of Harrison and Doucoure who offer nothing. Calvert-Lewin needs to go – see if someone will pay him his supposed wanting £100k a week, FFS!

We need new players in as well as trying Patterson, Harrison, Armstrong and two up front. Change it up instead of starting the same.

All hope near gone and you can just see the same line-up and formation against shitty no-mark Spurs.

Craig Scott
8 Posted 15/01/2025 at 23:13:21
So all the recent TW chatter and focus on the new manager and the hope of improvement when the focus needed (needs) to be on either playing some younger talent that we do have or getting Thelwell to do his job in the current transfer window to get some talent from elsewhere.

It's obvious our squad are (with a few exceptions) not up to it. But focusing on a manager change is a distraction from the real problem and that's the quality of our players.

A player like Calvert-Lewin personifies this. Yes, he once had a reputation for working hard, but his supporters couldn't see that, despite that, he just wasn't and still isn't good enough.

We desperately need some acumen in the boardroom to recognize that we need to invest in better quality players, not a better-quality manager. Even the likes of Pep and Carlo (as we've seen) couldn't make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that are our squad of players.

Ernie Baywood
9 Posted 15/01/2025 at 23:21:50
Craig, we obviously need an improvement to the quality of the squad. I'm not sure any single fixture is needed to ram that point home. Moyes said it in his first press conference and he'd barely been with us a day. I'd be very surprised if part of his negotiations with the owners did not involve a commitment on transfer spend.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't bother playing until new players arrive though.

They gave it a go tonight. Against a team that has already had investment and has performed well in the league.

There are options in this squad too. While I can understand selecting Doucoure, Young, Mykolenko, Harrison, Calvert-Lewin ... there are options that can replace them, either like for like or through a change in approach.

Dyche sat on his hands and had to go. If Moyes does the same, then he'll deserve similar criticism, but not after one game.

Brendan Fox
10 Posted 15/01/2025 at 23:28:44
Moyes did himself no favours starting with the exact same favoured Dyche players in exactly the same formation, it showed no endeavour or imagination expecting a different result which is frankly ridiculous.

Something drastically needs to change in the setup of the team both formation and players to start posing more of a goal threat to get a win and much needed points, playing it safe and playing for a draw is not going to be enough.

There's players to come back from injuries but they might not be match fit for a few weeks but they will offer the team more creativity and threat when they do get back, unknown whether there's going to be any players bought

Team for Spurs:

3-4-3 or 3-4-1-2

Pickford

O'Brien Tarks Branthwaite
Patterson Mangala Lindstrom Myko
Sherif Ndiaye Beto

We're currently on a losing run of matches where the team has offered little to no goal threat albeit marginally better this evening but still nowhere near enough threat so drastic measures to change our fortunes and the script.

Be brave Moyes and you might win some sceptics over, stay in Dour Davie mode and things will go south and sour in no time.

Rob Jones
11 Posted 15/01/2025 at 23:30:46
It's impossible to defend Calvert-Lewin. The man couldn't score underwater with a tank of oxygen. His fiancee can come and bitch on social media all she likes, but her man's not good enough at his job. He works hard, and he gets some knock-downs, but he shoots like a drunk toddler.
Ed Prytherch
12 Posted 15/01/2025 at 23:52:10
I can understand why Moyes picked that team. He knew how they all performed for Dyche but he needed to see how they performed for him. Now he has a clearer picture of who he can depend on.
George Cumiskey
13 Posted 15/01/2025 at 23:57:33
Bringing on fresh legs with ten minutes to go, now who does that remind me of 🤔
Rob Jones
14 Posted 16/01/2025 at 00:07:46
I said it on the Live Forum, by the way: if Moyes is going to persist with Calvert-Lewin (and fuck knows why he would), he needs to switch Harrison to the left, put Ndiaye on the right, and use Lindstrom at 10. Harrison is utterly wasted on the right, and he might as well use them as traditional wingers, putting crosses in, using DCL in his only natural role, with Lindstrom knocking in knock-downs as the 10.
Sean Kearns
15 Posted 15/01/2025 at 00:10:12
Moyes has played a blinder and bought himself an extra match, and also got to see what standard we are up to… if he made changes and played 2 up top, and we had lost, he would have got dogs abuse. He plays the same team with a hope we get a result so he can take credit, but if we lose then it’s “see I told you so” and now he can ring changes without pissing off too many team members. We played alright considering the manager was probably asking different things from the players and with more time they’ll start to get the new tactics down. But Dom has to be fucked off asap, start Beto on Sunday if we don’t have anyone new in… we need Richy back and I’m sure Lindstrom will start over Harrison now…. it’s fucking torture. I think about the young kids at the game who are maybe 10 or under, where is the motivation to stay with us!!! Their so called “heroes” just break their hearts every bastard week with literally nothing to even scream about. We don’t even score when we lose, there is no joy. ITS A FUCKING SHAMBLES and better days will come one day. I just want some younger fans to have a fun time out and something to celebrate sometimes. There is no connection. Where is their hero who’s poster goes above their bed? Jordan is worthy, Ndiaye has cult potential but they all need to get there fucking fingers out… The Yiddos can get fucked on Sunday. They will play an open game so I would deffo play Beto up top as Dom is ALWAYS OFFSIDE!!!
Sean Kearns
16 Posted 16/01/2025 at 00:27:29
We have never finished in the top half of the league with DCL as our number 9!!! He doesn’t come deep, link play, put crosses in, get assists, take free kicks, score from outside the box, or play with the team in any way shape or form. He just want balls into the box so he can be a poacher but he can’t even do that! He might only get 3-4 chances a game and he is deffo offside for 50-75% of them!! For the last 3-4 years he is never ever onside it winds me up!!!… I reckon A LOT of our problems stem from him. He’s the common denominator imo… ok rant over.
Josh Jansen
17 Posted 16/01/2025 at 00:43:53
Saw more flashes today than in months. Good things to come. I think the old man will figure it out.

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