Everton’s unconvincing five-game unbeaten run came to a shuddering halt on the south coast when they allowed bottom club Southampton to plunder the points late on.

A lethargic contest between two poor teams ultimately pivoted in the 85th minute when substitute Beto crashed a header off the crossbar at one end before Adam Armstrong struck the winner at the other 27 seconds later.

Beto had another potentially dramatic equaliser ruled out by a razor-thin offside decision by the Video Assistant Referee but, ultimately, Sean Dyche’s side fell well short of the levels required on the day.

With Abdoulaye Doucouré struggling in the week with an unspecified injury but Dwight McNeil able to play despite not training all week because of a minor knee complaint, the former Burnley man took his usual place behind Dominic Calvert-Lewin while Michael Keane was, once again, preferred to Jarrad Branthwaite, Orel Mangala started in central midfield and Jesper Lindstrøm was handed a rare start on the right.

Just like the meeting between the two clubs in the Carabao Cup in September, the pattern of the match was established early, with Saints dominating the ball and trying to play their way through an erratic press while Everton were content to sit off and try to force mistakes.

Lindstrøm prompted a comfortable save from Aaron Ramsdale with an early direct free-kick and the Dane later whipped in an excellent cross that just eluded Calvert-Lewin and Iliman Ndiaye in the middle but the visitors largely chased shadows for the first 20 minutes.

Though he didn’t appear to properly recover from a knock inflicted early on by Kyle Walker-Peters, Ndiaye was, as expected, the Toffees’ most creative outlet, jinking his way past his man on one occasion to force a corner midway through the first half and then engineering space for a tame effort on goal shortly before half-time but, on the whole, it was woeful fare.

Russell Martin’s side, meanwhile, looked more likely to affect the scoreline by giving the ball away in dangerous areas than through their efforts in front of Everton’s goal but they did briefly threaten late in the first period when Jordan Pickford had to get a glove on Armstrong’s low cross to divert it away from Ryan Manning at the back post and then when Taylor Harwood-Bellis planted a free header wide.

If Dyche had instructed his men to do anything differently in the second half, there was precious little evidence of it, though Mangala did test Ramsdale five minutes after the restart with a good side-foot shot from the edge of the box that the keeper batted over the bar and onto the roof of his net.

The pendulum then swung the way of the hosts who were starting to grow in confidence the more Everton illustrated their ineptitude going forward. James Tarkowski did well to deflect Harwood-Bellis’ goal-bound effort wide, Joe Aribo tried to take advantage of Ndiaye’s mistake in his own half but miscued his attempt to lob Pickford and Tyler Dibling’s cross from the right was just too much for Armstrong at the far post so he volleyed wide.

Everton’s best spell of the match arguably came in the 20 minutes before they conceded the decisive goal. Keane had stayed forward following a corner and was in the box when Lindstrøm swung in an invitingly ball that the defender stretched to meet, his header searching out the inside of the post before Ramsdale made an excellent stop with his out-stretched glove.

Then, after Beto was scythed down by Jan Bednarek, Lindstrøm forced another one-handed stop from the former Arsenal keeper with a sweeping direct free-kick and Jack Harrison, on for the struggling Ndiaye, ghosted in to meet McNeil’s deep delivery but could only touch it a yard wide.

Beto had come on for Calvert-Lewin in a double change in the 62nd minute and he came within inches of making another heroic impact off the bench. Pulled back by Dibling with six minutes left on the clock, he was once again in the six-yard box as Tarkowski met the dead-ball delivery with a first-time knock back across goal. Unfortunately, the Portuguese’s header came back off the woodwork and Southampton immediately countered.

In getting back, Vitalii Mykolenko had left the left-back area empty and when Yukinari Suguwara was played into the space behind McNeil, he was able to cross hard and low for Armstrong to bury a first-time shot into Pickford’s net.

There was still time for more late drama, however, as Beto pulled down a ball over the top with sublime control before rattling a shot under Ramsdale and into the goal, with no flag from the linesman to signal offside. Unfortunately, VAR Matt Donohue adjudged the striker to have been fractionally offside and the goal was chalked off.