O’Brien sees red as Everton are vanquished at home once again

When it has come to talk of Europe, David Moyes’s rhetoric has ebbed and flowed like the River Mersey that runs past Bramley-Moore Dock. With each unexpected and laudable away victory comes renewed hope that qualifying for Continental competition is an achievable goal, despite the club being in what the manager describes as the early stages of a long recovery after years of struggle.

Perhaps on his more circumspect days, it’s nights like this, and Everton’s increasingly miserable home form, that nag at his psyche and keep him grounded when it comes to expectations of what this team is capable of this season.

Under the lights at a sodden Hill Dickinson Stadium, the Blues exhibited the requisite fight, determination and, in spells, quality to rectify a winless run at home that stretches back to the first week of December.

But then they also revealed the soft underbelly and propensity to implode that was their undoing against Tottenham, Newcastle and Brentford in what were, to this point, the worst games at the new stadium so far. Meanwhile, Bournemouth — yes, them again — exposed the gaps in recruitment that have left Moyes without sufficient quality in some key areas with their own impressive additions to Andoni Iraola’s squad. Two of the Cherries’ recent signings scored while a third laid on their equaliser.

For Everton, Thierno Barry, had shaken off a miserable start to life in the Premier League to bag four goals in six matches in the space of a month but he remains painfully raw and ungainly at times, as exemplified in the 29th minute of this latest frustrating home defeat when he shinned a gilt-edged chance horribly off target in front of the North Stand.

The Frenchman lasted an hour before he made way for Beto in a double-change that was being prepared when the Cherries wiped out the Toffees’ half-time lead and was completed prior to the restart. The Portuguese-born striker, just as ineffective on his worst days, offered even less and the fact that Moyes turned to Michael Keane as an auxiliary striker late as the 10-man hosts desperately chased the game after Jake O’Brien had been sent off spoke volumes.

Whether you believe O’Brien should have again played out of position at right-back likely depends on your deference to Moyes’s ingrained pragmatism and how much faith you put in Nathan Patterson. The Irishman’s deployment at right-back was, perhaps, the only nit when the team sheets were announced at 6:15pm. Tyrique George was a welcome inclusion for his full debut, as was Jarrad Branthwaite who had been withheld from the starting XI at Fulham on Saturday in the interests of managing his load following a long injury lay-off.

And the start Everton made was encouraging enough. They pressed and harried the visitors doggedly, tried to impress the right tempo on the contest and had the ball in the net before 10 minutes had elapsed but Iliman Ndiaye had dummied Idrissa Gueye’s bouncing shot from an offside position in front of goalkeeper, Đorđe Petrović, so the goal was ruled out.

Unfortunately, while they didn’t show it quite as much in the reverse fixture at the start of December — another of those impressive Everton away wins — Bournemouth can be fiendishly difficult opponents and the match quickly settled into a battle between two hugely competitive teams, neither of which were prepared to give the other much quarter.

The Blues arguably went long too often but there was a desire in their play that gave them the edge in the first half and eventually helped them edge their noses in front shortly before the break. In truth, they should have been comfortably ahead by the halfway stage.

When the effervescent Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was poleaxed by Amine Adli, James Garner lined up an awkward free-kick that Petrovic could only spill into the path of Barry but the striker couldn’t sort his legs out in time to rap it past the stranded the keeper and made a mess of the opportunity.

Shortly afterwards, Dewsbury-Hall was involved again, firing an excellent low ball across the face of goal that was met first-time by Ndiaye but Petrović managed to bundle it onto the post and out.

Though Evanilson had had the game’s first effort on target with a second-minute daisy-cutter, Bournemouth had been largely contained until the final 10 of the first half when Adli headed Rayan’s cross into an Everton defender and after George had been robbed of the ball in his own half, Alex Tóth fed Evanilson but his deflected shot was comfortably gathered by Jordan Pickford.

Instead it was Everton who were able to press home their primacy when a short free-kick ended with Branthwaite attempting to dribble his way into the Cherries’ area, only to be chopped down clumsily by Rayan.

Ndiaye took responsibility for the resulting penalty kick, sweeping an unstoppable shot wide of the keeper’s dive to make it 1-0.

By the time 10 minutes had elapsed in the second half, there was nothing that hinted of the implosion to come from Everton. Indeed, Petrović’s gift to Ndiaye with a terrible pass outside his box hinted of further calamity from the Cherries and though the Senegalese couldn’t pick Barry out in the centre., Dewsbury-Hall collected the rebound, out-muscled his man and attempted to curl home a second goal for the Blues, only for James Hill to throw himself at it and head it away from danger.

In the 54th minute, Ndiaye pulled away from two red-and-black shirts and played a neat one-two with Barry before sliding a beautiful pass right to the striker’s feet in front of goal but this time his side-foot finish was blocked by Álex Jiménez to prevent an almost certain goal.

Six minutes later, after Adrian Truffert had sent a shot skidding past Pickford’s left-hand post and Rayan had gone down in the box with referee Andy Madley unmoved by appeals for a penalty, Everton’s wheels came off.

With just Ndiaye for company wide on Bournemouth’s left, Truffert engineered space to whip a wicked cross to the back post where Vitalii Mykolenko, presumably unaware of the danger behind him, stooped under the ball and Rayan planted a header between Pickford and the upright.

Less than four minutes after that, the match had been flipped on its head, with Everton’s defence and goalkeeper all at sea. James Tarkowski was adjudged to have fouled Enes Ünal in an aerial duel and when the consequent free-kick was floated, Hill met it to head it back across goal where Adli had ghosted in behind substitute Harrison Armstrong to easily nod home.

Infuriating VAR inconsistency reared its ugly head when the fact that Ünal had jumped to challenge for the initial ball from an offside position was deemed inconsequential when O’Brien’s goal at Aston Villa last month was ruled out for there same “infringement” by Armstrong.

Everton’s nine-minute spell of self-sabotage was complete in the 69th when Armstrong couldn’t gather in Mykolenko’s sloppy ball down the line on the slide, Rayan stole it off him and three quick passes in transition later, Adli was racing onto a ball that would have taken him into a one-on-one duel with Pickford had O’Brien not wiped him out.

As the last man, the big defender left Madley with no option but to show him a straight red card for denial of a goalscoring opportunity and the hill the Blues needed to climb to win the game became a mountain.

In fairness, Moyes’s men at least tried to make a decent fist of it and could not be faulted for their spirit or effort. Sadly, they just couldn’t fashion a chance that resulted in another goal.

Ndiaye headed a deep Mykolenko cross well wide, James Garner lashed the clearance from a dreadful KDH corner into the South Stand from distance while Beto failed to unduly test the goalkeeper with a header from Ndiaye’s centre and both Gueye and Branthwaite had late shots deflected behind.

And that was that. Cue the commiserations and recriminations, with everything from the manager, team selection, substitutions, players, recruitment and stadium seemingly at fault for the team’s inability to win at Bramley-Moore Dock. What’s worse is that it is a continuing, downward spiral — with each defeat, Hill Dickinson Stadium becomes an ever larger psychological issue.

Yet despite the rather demoralising sight of empty seats in prime areas of the ground, the atmosphere didn’t seem to be a problem; on the contrary, it felt as though there had been a conscious effort by supporters to generate noise and sustain it, especially once the team had gone 1-0 up.

Unfortunately, once the Blues had reverted to type and thrown away their advantage, the grumbles of dissatisfaction were inevitable, even while the crowd tried to roar them on when they were battling with a numerical disadvantage.

Moyes and his charges now have a break before another night game, this time against rejuvenated Manchester United who are unbeaten under caretaker boss, Michael Carrick. That promises to be a much tougher assignment than even a Bournemouth side who arrived on a five-game unbeaten run of their own.

Whether Everton are up to it and whether Moyes has learned anything more from this evening remains to be seen. But, at the risk of repeating the same refrain, Europe will remain out of reach if we can’t win our home fixtures.