There’s a strong argument to be made that Everton should be heading into this little mini-break in their season toasting three successive wins and 13th place in the Premier League rather than looking back rather frustratedly at two successive draws.
Even without the VAR controversy at the end of Saturday’s 2–2 tie with Manchester United, David Moyes will feel that his team should have beaten his old club on account of having led 2–0. And this evening, had the Beto that turned his Goodison career around with five goals in four games showed up rather than the one that had Evertonians questioning whether the gangly forward was even Premier League quality at all, the Toffees would be travelling back to Merseyside with all three points.
Three times Beto found himself eyeball-to-eyeball with Mark Flekken and three times the Brentford goalkeeper foiled him in the kind of situations from which the Portuguese has been deadly since Moyes took over from Sean Dyche last month. His two chances late in the first half could have buried a Bees side that hasn’t won at home since mid-December; as it was, horrendous defending at the other end meant that Everton had to claw their way back to parity in the second half.
And yet, Beto could have won it for the tired but willing visitors but he was denied one final time by Flekken. It was a hugely frustrating night in West London but one that finished with Everton’s unbeaten run extended to seven matches ahead of a much-needed warm-weather hiatus in the Middle East.
No one of a Blue persuasion needs convincing of the paucity of options at the manager’s disposal at the moment but it was underscored before kick-off with the release of a team sheet that was down one more regular starter. Abdoulaye Doucouré had been given family leave as his wife expects the birth of their baby so Alcaraz started for the second successive away game, having got the nod against Crystal Palace 10 days ago with Doucouré suspended.
Youssef Chermiti and Nathan Patterson made welcome returns to the substitutes’ bench but were unused and, in the end, it was members of the starting XI who fashioned the 77th-minute equaliser, scored emphatically by Jake O’Brien, and then the chance that probably should have delivered victory two minutes from the end of the regulation 90.
Despite their recent lack of success on home soil, Brentford are always difficult opposition and they demonstrated that during a first half that ebbed in favour of both sides at various times, with the hosts having the better of the early exchanges and Everton finishing strongly until their defence dropped a clanger in stoppage time.
The teams traded speculative efforts from distance in the first 10 minutes, Keane Lewis-Potter bouncing an effort a few inches past Jordan Pickford’s post and James Garner doing considerably worse with an awful shot from similar range at the opposite end, and it wasn’t until the 18th minute that either keeper was forced to make save.
Brentford were doing well to evade the Blues’ press when they had the ball, collapsing the space around their opposition when they didn’t, and working it into dangerous areas with crisp passing at times. Kevin Schade’s deliveries had been repelled by Everton’s back line but Yoane Wissa popped up unmarked at the back post in the 18th minute and, thankfully, his header was comfortably saved while, a minute later, Kristoff Ajer planted one of his own past the post.
Everton’s best work was done on the counter-attack and they just lacked clinical end-product to make them tell. Alcaraz fed Jesper Lindstrøm in the 25th minute but his pass forced the Dane wide and the final cross towards the Argentine was slightly overhit.
Three minutes after that, Lindstrøm picked Beto out with a chipped ball from the right but, leaning back, the striker could only hook it over the bar. When the winger’s run took him into the box shortly afterwards, O’Brien opted not to shoot first-time and, instead, tried a back heel to set up Alcaraz but a defender nipped in to smuggle it away.
What followed were five minutes that Beto would largely wish to forget if they didn’t offer valuable experience to take with him forward. First, O’Brien’s cushioned header looked to have dropped invitingly for the Portuguese to take a poke at from close range but he hesitated and Ethan Pinnock blocked him off. Then, Beto was put clean through as Pinnock lost his footing as the last man, leaving the forward one-on-one with Flekken but his touch in trying to take it around him was clumsy and the keeper got enough on it to block it away.
Finally, after Alcaraz had nodded the ball over the halfway line to send Beto away again, the striker got a little too much lift on his shot and it enabled Flekken to divert it behind.
Beto’s misery was almost complete when his sloppy pass gifted Brentford possession in his own half and Pickford was called into action to make a parrying save to his left but only a minute later it was 1-0 to the hosts. Beto mis-judged Schade’s deep throw-in, James Tarkowski failed to connect with it either and Brian Mbeumo thought he’d converted the bounce but it crashed off the crossbar. Wissa reacted first amidst a clutch of statuesque Everton defenders, rising high to nod it over the line.
It was an enormously frustrating way to end a half that Everton had clearly “won” on chances created but, to their credit, they battled fatigue and fought their way back into the contest in the second period, one that began with Jack Harrison’s wicked corner being cleared off the line as it bobbled off Flekken.
Garner despatched a 52nd-minute volley into the stands while a succession of crosses from the left flank from Harrison and Vitalii Mykolenko ended disappointingly in the goalkeeper’s arms. But Alcaraz came very close to notching his second goal for the club with a Richarlison-esque snapshot from the edge of the box that flew a foot or so past the upright.
The former Southampton man then teed Harrison up for a shot from the angle but Ajer got across to block it, while a rare foray forward from Brentford saw Wissa put the ball in the net for a second time after Mikkel Damsgaard’s excellent reverse pass had played Lewis-Potter in behind the defence but the “goal” was ruled out for offside.
Moyes made his first changes with 15 minutes left and within two more, the Toffees were level. Another patient move had seen Harrison and Mykolenko exchange passes on the left before the Ukrainian swept a teasing ball towards the back post where O’Brien stooped to power a beautiful header back across Flekken and into the other side of the net. It was a fine finish, his first goal for the club and no more than he deserved.
That sparked an open contest as both teams tried to grab the points but it was Everton who created the chances to do so, first on another counter-attack where Harrison slipped the ball inside to Alcaraz but he could only guide his shot straight at the keeper.
Alcaraz despatched another more awkward opportunity over in injury time but, in between, Beto had been presented with a gilt-edged chance to hand Everton all the spoils. Once more he found himself bearing down on Flekken after Alcaraz had sent him galloping through and past Pinnock's despairing tackle. No doubt desperate to atone for his earlier misses, he went for glory himself with Alcaraz racing in behind two red-and-white shirts to his right, attempting to curl it around the keeper but being denied by an out-stretched arm. Moyes was incredulous; Beto equally so. Alcaraz was livid but replays showed the pass to him wasn't as obvious as he might have thought.
The frustration felt at another drawn match that Everton could easily have won is a reminder of how far this team has come in such a short space of time. The team under Dyche was often barely in contests and clinging to a draw given their overly-defensive posture but now they're routinely leaving the field annoyed not to have won.
In tacking on another point to their tally after 27 games, the Blues remain one of the form sides in the division and are just eight points shy of Moyes’s target of 40. Safety is effectively guaranteed and every game and performance now is a chance for the manager to assess what he inherited from his predecessor and formulate a plan for the summer’s recruitment.
For the players, the chance to recharge batteries and allow some of the returning players to build up their fitness ahead of the trip to Wolves will be a welcome one. They have been to the well a number of times in recent weeks the comfort of mid-table safety is their reward for now.