Painfully familiar frailties see Everton spoil Goodison’s party

If there is a building hope among long-suffering Evertonians, it’s that amid the emotional wrench of leaving Goodison Park, the new pastures that await on the banks of the Mersey in August will offer an opportunity for the Club to push the reset button and put the pain and frustrations of the past few years firmly behind them.

This penultimate top-flight fixture at the Grand Old Lady, the last ever 3pm Saturday kick-off here,  was supposed to be the party before the tearful goodbye against Southampton in a fortnight’s time, and the celebrations were in full swing when Dwight McNeil’s delightful strike hit the back of the net to put Everton 2-0 up with 35 minutes played.

Unfortunately, while there is a different manager in the dugout than the one that began the campaign, old habits and frustrating weaknesses are dying hard and the Toffees became only the second team of the Premier League era after 2013/14 West Bromwich Albion to throw away a two-goal advantage in four different games in a single season.

Though they had largely been devoid of much inspiration for the first 25 minutes or so, Everton came to life when Beto put them ahead and McNeil, starting his first match since December, doubled the lead with a typically emphatic hit, both goals coming from nice interchanges down the flanks.

However, when Julio Enciso eclipsed the Blues winger with an even more spectacular goal shortly before half-time, it gave the Tractor Boys the platform from which they could go on and grab a point 11 minutes from time.

In between, in stark contrast to the magnificent welcome they had received from Goodison faithful before kick-off, the hosts simply ran out of drive and inspiration. Their failure to register a single shot on target in the second half against a relegated team that has shipped 76 goals this season was particularly galling and George Hirst’s equaliser felt all-too predictable for supporters who have witnessed this kind of mental fragility far too many times.

It should have been completely different. The1878s had done a superb job in putting together a marvellous visual spectacle to welcome the players onto the pitch for the second-to-last time at Goodison. The Gwladys Street was covered in flags and tifos, the Park End held up and blue-and-white cards that spelled out “Goodison Park”, and the players entered the field to a roar and a shower of ticker-tape.

What followed failed to live up to the atmosphere, however. Everton began with a degree of purpose and intensity but lacked cohesion as Iliman Ndiaye got to grips with playing in the No 10 role in Abdoulaye Doucouré’s absence for personal reasons and Alcaraz made a rare start, nominally playing on the left but prone to drifting inside so he could help influence play.

Perhaps in response to the manager’s criticism of the team’s set-piece delivery, Moyes’s men had greater success in the early going from dead-ball situations, with Jake O’Brien heading back across goal for Beto but his header couldn’t beat Alex Palmer and the Portuguese going close a few minutes later with an ambitious overhead kick that flew over the crossbar.

Beto then cleared the bar again with a header from James Garner’s cross before the visitors started to find a foothold in the contest. Liam Delap, in the press in the lead-up to the game following Moyes’s stated admiration of the striker, couldn’t get full purchase with a heel flick on Omari Hutchison’s low cross before Hutchison himself saw an accurate drive diverted away by Jarrad Branthwaite’s out-stretched leg.

At the other end, Ndiaye latched on to a poor defensive header and found Beto who laid it off in turn to Alcaraz to tee Nathan Patterson up for a cross on the overlap but the Scot fired his centre straight at the goalkeeper.

In the 26th minute, however, it all came together nicely for the Toffees. Vitalii Mykolenko’s attempted cross was blocked but Alcaraz seized the loose ball wide on the left, looked up and then curled a beautiful ball to the edge of the six-yard box where Beto expertly guided a header past Palmer to give Everton a deserved lead.

Delap was then fortunate to stay on the field after being booked for his role in a tête-à-tête with Branthwaite and then ramming his forearm into the defender’s midriff barely a couple of minutes later, leaving him prone on the turf and Goodison baying for a second yellow card that was not forthcoming from novice referee, Lewis Smith, who was abysmal throughout.

10 minutes before the break, it was 2-0 after McNeil announced his full return with a goal plucked from his box of tricks. After a neat passage of play down the right, the winger found himself in space 25 yards from goal and he unleashed a wickedly swerving drive that Palmer could only watch fly into the other side of his net.

Goodison had been in full voice during the first half, with a healthy repertoire of songs raising the volume inside the ground but if some Evertonians had been dreaming of a rare rout to enhance the festive mood, they would be much mistaken and it was Enciso who soured the mood.

The Paraguayan had tried to chip Jordan Pickford from distance in the 37th minute and, after jinking inside Patterson and O’Brien, fired just wide two minutes after that. It was dress-rehearsal, however, for the moment shortly afterwards when he twisted and turned into space again, this time 30 yards out, before belting an unstoppable shot in off the underside of Pickford’s bar.

Everton were ahead coming out for the second half, though, and should have had enough to put Championship-bound Ipswich to the sword. Infuriatingly, they didn’t really show up after half-time.

McNeil curled a couple of dangerous in-swingers that just eluded Beto and Ndiaye in the middle while Palmer had to push another of his crosses away at full stretch but the Blues — and Ndiaye and Alcaraz in particular — were curiously subdued.

Instead, it was Ipswich who looked the more likely to add to the scoring, which they almost did when Jacob Greaves got round the back and centred for Enciso but he sliced over, before they did eventually level in the 79th minute.

The home crowd had been incensed when Patterson went down holding his face but the referee allowed the visitors to play on and attack down their right where Hutchison eluded Mykolenko’s desperate lunge and whipped a deflected cross into the box.

O’Brien was caught under the flight of the cross and lost track of Hirst who hung in the air at the back post long enough to despatch a downward header inside Pickford and the upright to level it at 2-2.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin had already been introduced for Beto by this point and he was joined by Jack Harrison, Ashley Young, Youssef Chermiti and Tim Iroegbunam but Everton weren’t able to fashion a single chance until the seventh minute of stoppage time when Chermiti won a corner but referee Lewis, blowing the full-time whistle early, denied the Blues one last opportunity to win a match they allowed to slip from their grasp.

This was Everton’s 15th draw of the season; the 10 points dropped from what should have been unassailable positions in the four games in which they have led 2-0 (not to mention missed opportunities in recent weeks against the likes of Brentford, Wolves and West Ham) would have had them up around 11th place and in the mix for a top-half finish.

However, in underscoring where the current crop lack defensive resilience and attacking creativity, perhaps it’s just as well that Moyes is seeing exactly where he needs to focus his recruitment efforts this summer in what will be the start of a huge job of reconstruction.

There were glimpses in some promising passages of play of what this team could become under Moyes, with the players knocking the ball about crisply at times, but they couldn't sustain it in the first half or reproduce it nearly enough in the second.  

Ultimately, it was a disappointing let down for the Old Lady who has played host to a paltry four Premier League wins all season and none since the start of February. One more fixture remains and it would behoove the players to ensure that she goes out on a high. Sadly, no one should be holding their breath that they will obglige…