Beto bails Everton out with last-gasp equaliser

Towards the end of the latest episode of the Evertonia Podcast, there was a quip from yours truly that we Blues shouldn’t overlook the “wild card” option of David Moyes stringing all four of his now fit and available centre-halves across his defence for this weekend’s trip to Brighton. It was a more than half-serious prediction and the manager obliged by doing just that.

His move was prompted in part by a knock sustained in training by Vitalii Mykolenko but also wholly in character for one of the original purveyors of the “keep it tight and nick one” approach. It was harsh on Nathan Patterson, however, and it resulted a turgid first 45 minutes of anti-football from Everton in a season littered with poor first-half displays.

An xG of 0.00 and a fortunate escape when Kaoru Mitoma missed a glorious chance to put the Seagulls ahead was the story of the first period from the visitors’ perspective but had Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall not spurned an even better opportunity to break the deadlock midway through the second, Moyes might well have had the last laugh.

As it was, the Toffees conceded the first goal for the fourth time in their last six matches in all competitions and it took an equaliser from Beto with almost the last kick of the game on his 28th birthday to avoid what would have been a fourth defeat in the last nine in the Premier League.

Given how successful his side have been away from home so far this season with the right mix of adventure and defensive solidity, the arguments over whether Moyes needed to be quite so cagey with his line-up will, no doubt, rumble on this week before another game on the road against Fulham next weekend.

With Jarrad Branthwaite fulfilling an awkward brief as a makeshift left-back and Jake O’Brien back on the other side of defence next to James Tarkowski and the returning Michael Keane, Everton looked unbalanced and ineffective with the ball for long periods of the game.

That they failed to register a single attempt on goal let alone one on target in the first half rather told the story of a team short on width without Jack Grealish or natural full-backs and who often struggled to find another black shirt with the ball.

What brief openings they were able to fashion came from mistakes by a Brighton outfit who were on a run of just one win in the League since November and looked well short of their usually enterprising and offensively dangerous selves.

Nevertheless, they were clearly the more likely side to score in the first half and came close to an early opener when Ferdi Kadıoğlu’s cross bounced off Tarkowski and narrowly missed ricocheting into his own goal. Following the resulting corner, Jordan Pickford had to be alert to stop Danny Welbeck’s close-range back-heel and the England keeper should have been tested again when Georginio Rutter connected with another Kadıoğlu centre but volleyed wide of the target.

Welbeck planted a header past the far post when he might, too, have done better but when Dewsbury-Hall’s uncharacteristic error gifted the Seagulls the ball in the 19th minute, Mitoma came within inches of putting them ahead. The Japanese winger played a neat one-two with Welbeck but swept his shot across Pickford and past the post.

Everton could only improve after the break and the fact that they ended the game having twice the number of efforts on target than their hosts was evidence of their far greater intent, particularly once Moyes had made a number of changes that included the very late addition of a dedicated right-back in the form of Patterson.

Prior to that, however, Dewsbury-Hall had screwed a decent shot across the face of Bart Verbruggen’s goal and Branthwaite glanced an O’Brien cross a yard wide of the other upright before “KDH” had Everton’s best chance to that point.

Thierno Barry seized on an errant ball by Carlos Baleba in the 68th minute, drove into the box and teed up Dewsbury-Hall but the former Chelsea man fired too close to the keeper and Verbruggen denied him with an out-stretched foot.

Three minutes later, a Tarkowski header hit O’Brien on its way to goal without the rebound falling to an Everton player in the six-yard box and two minutes after that, the contest had swung the other way when Brighton scored.

Yasin Ayari’s cross was cleverly dummied by Charalampos Kostoulas and when it fell to Pascal Groß in a central position, he had the simple task of side-footing it past Pickford from near the penalty spot.

Moyes responded a few minutes later by withdrawing KDH, Idrissa Gueye and Harrison Armstrong in favour of Carlos Alcaraz, Tim Iroegbunam and Tyler Dibling but the increased urgency epitomised by the Argentine in particular didn’t look like it was going to translate into a leveller until late on.

First, Patterson’s deflected cross found Keane but his first-time effort was saved but then with a final throw of the proverbial dice deep into stoppage time, James Garner curled in a ball from a similar position, a rebound fell to O’Brien who had switched sides to left-back and when his drilled strike was blocked again by Verbruggen, it fell invitingly to Beto to fire home.

A check by Video Assistant Referee, Neil Davies, determined that Tarkowski had not impeded the keeper’s sight of the ball from an offside position and what ended up being a deserved Everton equaliser was allowed to stand.

Another point moves the Blues into eighth place for the time being but both the team selection and many aspects of the performance highlight the need for continued reinforcements to a side still lacking creativity in forward areas.

Reports circulated just before the game that the club have offered a loan deal to Chelsea’s Tyrique George, someone who would add much-needed pace, and if that is all that happens before Monday’s deadline, it points to the expected season of consolidation rather than any realistic crack at Europe.

Much, however, will depend on how far down the Premier League table the European places ended up going once all the permutations around the winners of the domestic cups and England’s allocation of Champions League spots.