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Everton played for more than a half with a man advantage against Brentford but couldn’t find a way past goalkeeper Mark Flekken and the Bees’ dogged defence.
The Blues’ struggles in front of goal have been evident all season and they continued to blight them on a frustrating afternoon at Goodison Park, particularly after Christian Nørgaard was sent off late in the first period for a high challenge on Jordan Pickford.
Flekken made a couple of key saves, Vitalii Mykolenko fired a good chance over and Beto’s late strike was blocked on its way to goal by Ethan Pinnock, while Pickford had to come up trumps to deny Yoane Wissa when the numbers were still even 10 minutes before the break.
With Jarrad Branthwaite and Dwight McNeil fit, both players were included by Sean Dyche in the starting XI where Abdoulaye Doucouré was preferred to Olel Mangala in the middle alongside Idrissa Gueye as the only change from the team that started at West Ham.
The opening exchanges — indeed, most of the first half — were pleasing from the hosts’ perspective, with Dyche’s men coming out of the traps with intensity and intent.
Iliman Ndiaye jinked to open up space for a fourth-minute shot that was deflected behind and, when the resulting corner was only headed out as far as Gueye, his volley was almost flicked home by Dominic Calvert-Lewin but Flekken made an excellent reaction save to palm the ball wide.
Calvert-Lewin glanced a header wide, Gueye missed from distance and, at the end of an Everton counter-attack, McNeil played the striker in but his effort took a nick off a defender’s leg and into the keeper’s arms.
Brentford didn’t threaten until 10 minutes had elapsed but Pickford was alive to Wissa’s low cross while Sepp van den Berg flashed a shot across goal and narrowly wide following a dangerous long throw-in.
For the next 20-odd minutes, it was all Everton again, though, as McNeil surged through the heart of the visitors but sliced a right-foot strike horribly wide before threading Calvert-Lewin in behind Ethan Pinnock where Flekken was there again to save with his foot.
The two Blues players reversed roles in the 33rd minute when McNeil fired Calvert-Lewin’s lay-off towards goal but another deflection took it past the post while three minutes later, the Bees sounded a warning of the threat they posed on the break themselves. Mikkel Damsgaard split the defence to send Wissa away but Pickford stuck out a crucial foot to send the forward’s shot wide of the target.
Three minutes after that came a potential turning point in the contest when Pinnock’s header to the back post looked certain to be knocked home by Nørgaard but the ball eluded him and in the process, he planted his studs onto the top of Pickford’s shin.
It was an ugly if unintentional challenge and when Video Assistant Referee, Graham Scott, sent Chris Kavanagh to the pitch-side monitor, there was only going to be one outcome, a red card for the midfielder and an uphill task for Brentford to avoid a sixth successive away defeat.
Unfortunately, though Ndiaye was given license to roam across the front after the break and McNeil was a frequent source of service from the left, Everton proved incapable of capitalising — though it wasn’t for the want of trying; they had 27 shots but only five on target.
Flekken was called into action twice in the first quarter-hour of the second half, first to bat Gueye’s dipping shot over his crossbar and then to help Jesper Lindstrøm’s deflected effort behind as well.
The best opening of the second period fell to Mykolenko, though, ghosting in off the left flank to meet Ndiaye’s clever centre but the Ukrainian couldn’t keep his right-foot shot down and the chance went begging.
At the other end, a brief flurry by Thomas Frank’s side saw Keane Lewis-Potter test Pickford and Mathias Jensen slammed the rebound into the Park End before Dyche made his first moves aimed at trying to force home a winner.
Lindstrøm and Doucouré were withdrawn in favour of Beto and Mangala as the manager went with two up top but Calvert-Lewin saw a low drive fizz wide and Beto popped up with two poor headers in the closing stages as the Blues were frustrated in their attempts to press home their numerical superiority.
One final opening fell to the Portuguese deep into stoppage time off James Tarkowski’s header back into the six-yard box but his shot hit Pinnock rather than find the back of the net and Kavanagh called time on Everton’s third 0-0 draw in 12 games.