As the old football adages go, if you can’t win just make sure you don’t lose and if you play badly and still come out of the game with something, then it can only be a positive. This was a frustrating match to watch because for most of the 90-odd minutes, it felt as though the points were there for Everton to grab but it never looked like they had what it took to do so — at least, not until Carlos Alcaraz was introduced as a second-half substitute and almost laid on the winner for Beto.

Just as he had done at Crystal Palace, the Argentine raced away on the counter and fed the Portuguese striker but, just like at Brentford, this just wasn’t Beto’s day. To be fair to him, it was a more difficult chance than most of the one-on-ones he has had in recent weeks but for almost all of this game he was clumsy, ineffective and just not at the races.

Collectively, Everton just weren’t “at it” either. The defence felt disconcertingly vulnerable at times, particularly at set-pieces, and the goal they conceded that wiped out Jack Harrison’s deflected opener was a poor one to concede but at the end of the day, the draw represented another point and it extended the Blues’ unbeaten run, the longest since Ronald Koeman was scowling on the touchline, to eight matches. Such a record was unthinkable two months ago and if you’re searching for other positives, the manager is learning all the time about the players he has and the ones he will need for next season.

Whether Abdoulaye Doucouré is one of those remains to be seen. Everton declined to take up a Club option to add a further year on the one-time Mali International’s contract on the existing terms and it could be that his form over the rest of the campaign and his willingness to reduce his wages are the determining factors if he stays.

On tonight’s evidence, Moyes won’t be rushing to the negotiating table. Like Beto and Jesper Lindstrøm, Doucouré looked as though he had left his touch and his best form in Abu Dhabi where the team spent a warm-weather break. Those who feared the hiatus might rob the side of some of its momentum probably had those concerns validated even if you couldn’t begrudge the players a well-earned trip to recharge after a hectic start to 2025.

Having missed the draw at Brentford, Doucouré was recalled to the starting XI and Alcaraz dropped to the bench and, in fairness to the former, he almost gave the Toffees the perfect start before his personal display tailed off. A first effort from 25 yards was charged down but with 10 minutes gone, he found himself with the ball at his feet in the penalty area at the end of a good move. He initially mis-controlled then cleverly tamed it and turned in a tight space but again saw his effort blocked.

From the resulting corner, though, Beto really should have had the ball in the net. The set-piece was worked short and when Harrison swung a teasing left-footer into the six-yard box, it needed just the merest of touches from the striker to knock it past José Sà but he failed to make any contact.

Wolves, who, under Vitor Pereira — he of the interesting past Everton connections — were chasing a victory that would have put more daylight between them and the relegation zone following Ipswich Town’s defeat at Crystal Palace earlier the day, then had a threatening spell themselves.

Rayan Aït-Nouri was allowed to drive forward through the Toffees’ midfield and afforded enough space to shoot but James Tarkowski stuck out a leg to divert his effort wide. From the corner, Marshall Munetsi connected well with a header but Jordan Pickford made an excellent parrying save.

The visitors drew first blood, however, in the 33rd minute after Tarkowski had stepped ahead of Jørgen Strand Larsen to intercept a defensive clearance that fell to the feet of Lindstrøm. The Dane slipped as he attempted to cross but conveniently found Harrison who shimmied with the ball at his feet and then despatched a shot that appeared to take a double deflection off two defenders before nestling in the far side of the goal.

The home crowd were already nervy and frustrated with their team’s propensity to give the ball away while trying to play out from the back and the goal should have been a platform from which Everton could have gone on to kill the game but Pereira’s men rallied instead.

Jean-Ricner Bellegarde was the latest player to be allowed space to line up a shot and he missed Pickrord’s left-hand post by inches while, a few minutes later, Munetsi’s header off another corner dropped to André at the back post but he lashed the ball into the side-netting.

Everton weren’t so fortunate five minutes before half-time, though. Once more ceding time and space to the opposition, they permitted Aït-Nouri to scythe through them, pick out Bellegarde who, in turn, played a perfectly-weighted pass to Munetsi to stroke past Pickford and level the score.

From the Blues’ perspective, the second half failed to live up to the hopes that Moyes would have roused them with his half-time team talk. The indefatigable Idrissa Gueye and industrious James Garner aside, there wasn’t much to admire and it was unfortunate that the Senegalese wasn’t able to put the icing on another man-of-the-match display by restoring Everton’s lead. Unfortunately, his rising shot in the 56th minute cleared the crossbar by some distance.

For Wolves, Joao Gomes had seen a shot blocked before it could trouble Pickford while substitute Pablo Sarabia rippled the side-netting with a direct free-kick that had Pickford scurrying across his goal-line before the match swung from end-to-end in the 72nd minute.

First, Pickford was forced into another impressive save, readjusting his leg quickly to divert away Strand Larsen’s shot from the angle leading to Everton breaking away on the counter. Alcaraz skipped over a despairing challenge in the centre-circle and smartly teed up Beto but Sa read his attempt to bend it into the corner and pushed the strike away one-handed.

Alcaraz stung the Portuguese keeper’s hands with a strong left-footed effort late on and Sarabia missed the target after cutting inside before the game petered out after three minutes of stoppage time.

In the final reckoning, a draw was probably a fair result and the big take-away for Evertonians is that while winning is always the goal, the results now are essentially meaningless in a football sense given that Everton are effectively safe; pride and prize money are the remaining rewards and, again, it’s all valuable insight for the manager and the recruitment team.

We have the luxury of being able to be frustrated at the Blues having dropped six points from the last three games and aren’t sitting in joint 11th in the table with Crystal Palace. Again: before Moyes came on board, that was an unthinkable scenario.


Reader Responses

Selected thoughts from readers
Certain off-topic comments may be removed to keep the discussion on track

1  Donal O’Mahony
09/03/2025    07:04:15

As always, Lyndon, a perfectly weighted report.

The Hammers next and then, remarkably, April’s run of fixtures where we play, in exact sequence, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th placed teams.

2  Peter Mills
09/03/2025    09:12:46

You haven’t left much to add, Lyndon.

We always seem to struggle after a warm weather break, but let’s hope a beneficial impact will kick in during what will be a very tough April. If we can average a point a game during that month we’ll be doing well.

David Moyes will be learning a lot about his players, compiling a list of those to be shed. I suspect Beto, Doucouré, Lindstrom and Harrison are already pencilled in.

3  Jeff Armstrong
09/03/2025    10:40:27

Remember Kendal’s magnificent 7 summer?
This summer could be similar, and of the 7 I think only big Nev proved to be useful, Jim Arnold maybe but he was more of a back up keeper.

4  Tony Killen
09/03/2025    11:21:16

Mid-season, warm weather, breaks became a regular occurrence for Everton about fifteen years ago in the all-too-frequent event that we suffered an early exit from the Cup.

To echo Peter’s thoughts above, can anyone on here recall any single occasion in all that time when the team has given even a decent performance in their first game back after one of these trips?

They looked disjointed and generally way off the pace last night.

5  Peter Hodgson
09/03/2025    11:33:26

Lyndon I enjoyed reading you review of the match. It was well written as usual. But watching the same match as you I think I would have summarised it with much fewer words than you. In fact only one word. That word Crap. I realise that my summary would not be acceptable but it is accurate. Maybe the new Manager bounce has run its course. Maybe not and it is just a blip. We must wait and see.

But we are about there anyway. BMD hello and we will see you and another season in the Prem League soon.

6  Tony Waring
09/03/2025    16:54:32

I've come to the conclusion that Beto's problem is that he is too slow. He does'nt react quickly enough and he does'nt run fast enough ! Whatever I think he is NOT our answer for the number 9 spot though I accpt that he is a trier and gives his all.

7  Neil Lawson
09/03/2025    20:19:04

An excellent report Lyndon. It was a frustrating watch. Harrison and Lindstrom did nothing to enhance their standing. Whilst Harrison scored, his first touch was poor, his second not much better and he was too slow to get his strike off. But for a very fortunate deflection we would all have been complaining about yet another failure near goal. Ndiaye is badly missed and we need pace and creativity on the other flank. The difference as soon as Alcaraz replaced Doucoure was palpable and he must start next week. Doucoure, on significantly reduced wages might be a useful squad player but he should go somewhere to be overpaid to underperform.

What is so encouraging though is that we have a team who are capable of winning games and are difficult to beat. With some appropriate additions we can be positive and hopeful of better things at BMD. Crucially, we know we will be there next season in the Premier League.

8  Ed prytherch
09/03/2025    22:58:06

We should definitely sign Alcaraz on a permanent deal. He was easily our most skillful and creative player.

9  Ben King
09/03/2025    23:18:24

Good report: accurate and fair

We ARE missing Ndiaye, McNeill and DCL so it’s our 2nd string offensive line

Agree we should sign Alcaraz though. What a gem he could be

10  Danny ONeill
10/03/2025    06:13:05

I can't add a lot to that summary Lyndon, as you capture everything we all witnessed, both in terms of the performance and the general sense of it being a valuable point regardless.

I too am not a fan of these winter warm breaks. To me, it makes little sense travelling thousands of miles to a hot desert, only to return to an English winter. Okay, the weather has been okay this past week, but you know what I mean.

For me, it would make more sense to stay closer to home. Maybe the Scandics or Austria. We used the latter for a couple of years not so long ago for pre-season.

11  Mark Stanley
10/03/2025    12:15:54

Great match report, Lyndon, you've summarised it very well.

Which team had 10 days off with some warm weather training, and which team had 7 days off after a marathon FA Cup game running to 120 mins and penalties? Watching us play Wolves you'd guess wrong. Up to our goal we did OK closing down, passing it around and at least looking like a team wanting the 3 points. After that we were outplayed in all areas and were lucky to come away with one point. I know recently it's been a vast improvement on Dyche, but Saturday did look awfully like Dycheball, again. Three winnable games and I feel like we've dropped 6 points. The problem is April looks a month of very tough games and although hoping for maximum points I fear getting none. Must now get 3 points against West Ham.

Harrison and Lindstrom shouldn't be retained neither can win a tackle, and Doucoure should only be kept on at a drastically reduced wage otherwise show him the door, too. He can be good closing down, but only if helped with others, which he wasn't on Saturday eventually running around aimlessly. Agree with everyone else that we should take Alcaraz on a contract. As for a No.9, start looking elsewhere. Beto has done well recently, but in the past two games he's come up short. DCL will be away on a free in the summer unless others are unwilling to take a player prone to injuries.

12  Benjamin Dyke
10/03/2025    12:59:45

It was strange how we were so flat. Maybe the warm weather trip was so fun and relaxing they reacted negatively to having to work hard! Alcaraz was the only one that seemed to have 'energy' and zip.

Defensively as Lyndon points out we were pretty poor. The pass for their goal should never have reached their goalscorer! I was also miffed at the free header at the back post that Pickford did well to save with his legs - how can a tall man be left free like that?

Anyway we remain unbeaten and Moyes will have learned a bit more about the squad both whilst away and during this game. We're as good as safe but let's see if we can overtake some teams above and put a gloss on a difficult season - such a relief to type those words after a very difficult few years as a blue!

13  Craig Walker
10/03/2025    13:52:12

Great write-up as usual, Lyndon.

I thought we were poor on Saturday with very few players coming away from the performance with much credit. We only livened up when Alcaraz was introduced.

I thought we gave away too many silly fouls in our own half which is a familiar Everton trait. I think better teams than Wolves would have punished us more from these set pieces.

I don't see what Charlie Adam has added to our dead ball situations. I thought our corners were dreadful, again.

Jack Harrison is one of the most frustrating players I can remember. He gets into good positions and has the attributes to be a good player but his final ball and decision making is woeful. I used to berate Iwobi for similar failings but Harrison is not as good as Iwobi was for us. We really do miss Ndiaye and McNeill because Lindstrom and Harrison don't offer enough attacking threat. I know Harrison scored but he got lucky with the deflection.

The unbeaten run is great and I would have snatched your hands off for a 17th place finish around January time but we should have more points on the board than we have got during this run. Man United and Brentford should have resulted in 6 points and Wolves were there for the taking without Cunha playing.

I'm glad with the progress but we've got a major rebuilding job ahead of us in the summer to get in some genuine quality, particularly in attacking areas.

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