Barry robbed as Blues make hard work of 10-man Ipswich

That Everton could turn in a performance as unconvincing and ragged as this, spend stoppage time nervily hanging on to a slender 1–0 lead against 10-man Ipswich and still end up sitting in fifth place at the final whistle probably contravenes some sort of conventional wisdom.

Despite the bitter failings of the later stages of the transfer window, the Blues have made a good start to the season but they were mystifyingly awful at times this afternoon. They made an early breakthrough thanks to a nice piece of improvisation by Thierno Barry but then failed to follow it up with any coherent attempt to put the Tractor Boys to the sword.

David Moyes’s men should have run out 2–0 winners at the very least but an infuriating VAR call to rule out a perfectly good goal by Barry in the second half and the Toffees’ general lack of cutting edge meant that they put the home faithful through an afternoon of frustration and needless concern late on.

Yet they head into an unwanted three-week international break unbeaten through their first seven games in all competitions and have kept three successive clean sheets. If the manager can coax a complete display out of them, particularly from his biggest names, who knows what Everton could achieve this season!

It was clear almost from the outset that this is a poor Ipswich side and that all Everton needed to be was efficient to get the job done. Jack Grealish made his first Premier League start of the season wide on the left flank but amid reports he felt ill before kick-off, Tyrique George dropped back to the bench and Brennan Johnson resumed his role on the right while Harrison Armstrong was back in the middle alongside James Garner.

And, after Abdul Fatawu had just overrun the ball after easily cutting in from the right between Vitalii Mykolenko and Garner allowing Jordan Pickford to claim, Johnson really should have got the ball rolling for Everton at the end of an excellent move after just five minutes.

Barry linked up with Armstrong who split the defence with a perfect pass but Johnson, having done all the hard work by swivelling smartly onto the ball, screwed his chance wide when it seemed easier to at least hit the target.

Not long afterwards, the first of innumerable giveaways by blue shirts to cream, this time by the perplexingly erratic Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, led to Pickford having to save from Emersonn at the other end.

The game’s only permitted goal arrived in the 11th minute, though, when Grealish probed outside the box before finding Mykolenko and Dewsbury-Hall swung in a dangerous cross. Christian Walton punched it away, Jack Clarke helped it on as far as James Tarkowski who rattled a volley towards goal where Barry managed to readjust his torso as it flew at him and the ball bounced off him into the far side of the goal.

That should have been the cue for Everton to take the game by the scruff of the neck and rack up a big scoreline but instead of going for the jugular, they spent a good deal of the rest of the half giving the ball away and inviting trouble from a side that, thankfully, weren’t able to profit.

Mykolenko did well to snuff out a chance for Julio Enciso when the Paraguayan was played into acres of space in the “D” outside Everton’s penalty area and Fatawu forced the first meaningful save from Pickford when he drilled a shot from the angle that was palmed wide. Then, after Tarkowski had sloppily given up possession, the Ghanaian tried to lob Pickford from way out, forcing England’s No 1 to make sure by touching it behind for another corner.

The hosts carried the greater threat but everything was bitty, littered with mistakes and lacking any real intensity. Nonetheless, Dewsbury-Hall and Grealish had shots charged down in their way to goal by Issa Diop and Daria O’Shea respectively before Barry stooped to meet Ainsley Maitland-Niles’s cross but steered a header wide.

Then, late in the half after Emersonn had planted a header of his own wide and Leif Davis miscued Ipswich's best opening across goal, the two teams traded bookings, with Fatawu yellow-carded for dragging Dewsbury-Hall back and Mykolenko for bringing the Ipswich winger down with a late tackle.

It was Fatawu’s infringement that would prove the more costly, however, because midway through the second period when he was caught in an act of obvious simulation in front of Stuart Attwell, the referee rightly flashed him a second yellow.

By that stage, Everton would, if any common sense was allowed when it comes to VAR and modern officiating, have been two goals to the good. Ipswich had made a good start after half-time, Pickford turning Enciso’s snapshot behind and then spilling another strong Fatawu drive before Tarkowski hacked it away, but Barry looked to have killed them off in the 57th minute.

Dewsbury-Hall’s cross had deflected behind for a corner that he himself delivered onto Barry’s head and the Frenchman guided it deftly across goal and in off the far post. Maddeningly, the killjoy du jour in Stockley Park, Andrew Kitchen, recommended that Attwell go to the monitor to go through the motions on a decision already made to chalk off the goal for offside against Johnson standing in front of Walton when there was no way on God’s green earth that the keeper could have saved it.

Enciso had another opportunity but side-footed over after the welcome mat had been laid down for Diop to charge forward into Everton’s half while Walton claimed a Barry header and Johnson scuffed wide at the end of an uncharacteristically quick passing interchange between Grealish and Dewsbury-Hall had put the winger in.

With Ipswich down a man and Tyler Dibling on for Johnson, the conditions seemed to be there for the Blues to turn the screw and put the game to bed. And with his first few touches and dancing feet, Dibling appeared determined to do just that.

In the 76th minute he jinked inside and fired goal-wards but Walton parried his shot and then, with mesmerising footwork, he made space for a teasing cross to the back post but Dewsbury-Hall put a header wide at the back post.

A few minutes later, Dibling was the danger man again, smashing one shot into the side-netting and then unloading again for an effort that was charged down by a defender. Armstrong, meanwhile, sliced an awful shot wide when Dewsbury-Hall was better placed alongside him.

Seven minutes of stoppage time on the fourth official’s board was unwelcome to the vast majority inside Hill Dickinson Stadium and Everton made hard work of the closing stages, unable to consistently keep the ball or force home the killer goal even with a numeral advantage. Thankfully, Zian Flemming lifted a shot over Pickford’s crossbar and Diop’s pile-driver was repelled by Jarrad Branthwaite before the ref called time.