It was the longest 43 minutes of our lives. 33 of the remaining minutes of the regulation 90 plus another 10 for substitutions, a delay for treatment to Jordan Pickford and unbridled celebrations for the goal that ultimately secured a 70th consecutive season of top-flight football for Everton Football Club.

43 minutes to see if the Blues could do what they had managed on only one other occasion at Goodison Park all season and score a second goal to practically remove all doubt. Or 43 nerve-shredding minutes to endure as the players gutted their way through Bournemouth’s attempts to play villain of the piece.

In the end, Abdoulaye Doucouré’s 20-yard rocket would be just enough. Leeds, with their inferior goal difference and air of defeatism having yet failed to win under bloviating emergency hire Sam Allardyce, needed a miracle; for Everton, Leicester City, with a six-goal advantage and plenty of talent in their ranks, were always the bigger danger.

As the Foxes increased their lead over West Ham 90-odd miles away at the King Power Stadium, so grew the implications of a goal by the Cherries who had not travelled up from the south coast to merely make up the numbers. Gary O’Neil clearly had no intention of losing a fourth match on the spin and his introduction of, first, Kieffer Moore and, then, Jaidon Anthony (who scored in each of the games against Everton at the Vitality Stadium last November) was proof enough.

It was hardly an onslaught or siege by Bournemouth during those seemingly endless added minutes but as balls were hoisted into the Blues’ box late on, varying degrees of fear flitted through hearts of anguished Evertonians before a moment of panic gripped the Grand Old Lady as substitute Matías Viña hammered a volley goal-wards in the fifth minute of stoppage time… only for Jordan Pickford to push it away with one final act of preservation in this most stressful of seasons.

With the final whistle just moments away in Leicester, a goal for the Cherries at that stage of the game would surely have sent Everton down.

As they have been for much of Dyche’s tenure so far, the Blues were up against it from the outset in terms of available players. Once again, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, rightly regarded as being vital to the team’s survival, had been ruled out, along with Vitalii Mykolenko which left the manager without his main striker and all of his senior full-backs.

For the first time since he took over from Frank Lampard, Dyche employed a back three, with Conor Coady and James Tarkowski playing alongside Yerry Mina on his swan song — a sensible move that beefed up central defence while allowing Dwight McNeil greater license to get forward than had been the case at Wolves last week where he had started at left-back.

The boss was aided by another terrific outing from James Garner who, playing out of position, put in arguably the standout performance on the day ahead of Idrissa Gueye, displaying composure, grit and intelligent use of the ball at crucial junctures. The 22-year-old came close to opening his account for Everton as well in first-half stoppage time but was foiled by a smart one-handed save by Mark Travers in the Bournemouth goal.

If the weakened starting XI didn’t portend potential doom, it was compounded by the fact that Bournemouth won the toss and forced the hosts to kick towards the Gwladys Street End in the first half.

Nevertheless, Everton began the game on the front foot but took a quarter of an hour to threaten the visitors' goal with the first of the few clear-cut openings of the contest. Demarai Gray, leading the line in place of Calvert-Lewin, won a corner on the right and when it was cleared to him outside the box, he drilled a shot that faded away from the target.

Everton's best chance of the first half fell to Gueye who was played in superbly by Amadou Onana but Travers tipped his rising effort over the crossbar and the goalkeeper had to be alert a few minutes later to push away another strong effort from the Senegalese international.

Doucouré bounced a shot wide from distance at one end but an error by Tarkowski almost condemned the Blues to a half-time deficit. The centre-half was dispossessed in a dangerous area but Mina got back to get a crucial touch on Dominic Solanke's shot to divert it behind while at the other end, Garner's curling effort was heading for the top corner but Travers batted it behind.

At the halfway stage, Evertonians were pondering the uncomfortable reality that, as things stood, their club was were heading out of the top flight. Leicester were ahead of West Ham thanks to Harvey Barnes’s goal but the Blues had another 45 minutes to make the breakthrough and then see out the clean sheet.

That breakthrough should have come just six minutes after the restart but Gray failed with a gilt-edged chance from close range. The ball was nodded into his path by Illia Zabarnyi in the six-yard box and he just had to deliver an emphatic finish but, perhaps put off contact from an approaching defender, miscued his header and Travers pushed it off the line and it was prodded behind to safety.

Six minutes after that, though, Doucouré imprinted his name indelibly on Goodison folklore alongside Barry Horne, Graham Stuart and Gareth Farrelly with a stunning 20-yard strike. Gueye's floated ball was initially cleared by Viña with his first touch and when it fell to Doucouré he smashed it home with such velocity that Travers barely moved.

The Old Lady erupted as one in elation before the hosts dug in to try and both defend the lead, and pad it if they could, but O'Neil's introduction of Moore threatened to add unwanted drama to the occasion.

The Welsh international's added height caused havoc at times and it was his knock-down that fell to Solanke in the box but Pickford made a decisive intervention, batting the ball off the striker's toes and apparently dislocating a finger in the process, while Mina finished the job by clearing his lines.

Everton's best moments in the closing stages came in transition as the Cherries tried to force home an equaliser and Gray wasted one great opportunity when he slipped trying to test the keeper from the angle before he was replaced by Ellis Simms.

The industrious Alex Iwobi had a shot deflected inches wide of the far post and Tarkowski headed over following a corner while Goodison held its collective breath at the other end as substitute Viña lined up that crisp volley that Pickford safely beat away.

Anguished Evertonians bayed for the final whistle as a couple of late free-kicks gave the visitors chances to heave the ball into the box but Everton's back line held before referee Stuart Attwell finally blew for full-time.

It’s not hyperbolic to say that this grand old club looked doomed in January when Lampard was finally sacked. With no support in the way of new attacking signings in the final days of the winter transfer window and cursed by ill fortune on the injury front, Dyche had a Herculean task on his hands to keep the Blues in the division.

There were question marks over some of his decisions and he only managed to win five of the 18 games he oversaw (fewer than many predicted he would need to guarantee safety) but he just about found a way to keep Everton up by hook or by crook.

The Toffees’ survival is also testament to the players who appeared at times to be lost but who never gave up the fight or their commitment to supporters who turned out in sold out numbers at Goodison Park and up and down the land.

Crucially in the final reckoning, just like last season, Everton were saved by the passion, faith and devotion of a fanbase that refused to bow to the dire fate that the actions of those charged with the stewardship of the club — absent once again on this most important of occasions — threatened to bring about.

Where rival clubs failed to muster the collective defiance and will, the power of the spirit that courses through this wonderful old institution and which is embodied within the storied brick, metal girders and wooden timbers of Goodison Park has proved too powerful to be extinguished.

For the quintessential top-flight club, finishing 17th this time around is cause not for celebration but relief. A true sleeping giant of the English game is not going under but lives to fight another day. However, real, extensive change has to now happen to ensure that we can truly ensure that Everton FC isn’t ever in the position of potentially fighting for its very existence again.


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