How do you make sense of Everton right now? They can’t win at home but only league leaders Arsenal have won more away points this season. Despite a summer rebuild that cost the club north of £120m, the only name on David Moyes’s team sheet for this match at St James’s Park not in Sean Dyche’s squad last season was Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
They came into the day averaging around a goal a game and, yet, they travelled back to Merseyside having scored three, savouring a second successive win on Newcastle’s home turf.
And then there was the team selection, baffling on the face of it at the end of a week dominated by discussion over and exasperation at Moyes’s penchant for forcing square pegs into round holes but one which was, ultimately, vindicated by the result.
Those fans chafing against the manager’s preference for towering centre-halves in the full-back positions were probably girding themselves for four of them being strung across the back four to counter the likes of Malick Thiaw, scorer of two goals in the reverse fixture in late November, Joelinton and Dan Burn.
The Scot did recall Jake O’Brien as expected but, pleasingly, he moved Jarrad Branthwaite back to his natural position and selected Vitalii Mykolenko at left-back following the Ukrainian’s omission from the line-up against Manchester United last Monday.
The biggest surprise was at right wing, however. Were it not for a late change of heart by the Crystal Palace hierarchy, Dwight McNeil would be preparing to face United at Old Trafford tomorrow but, inexplicably, he found himself in Moyes’s starting XI and, just like at Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa earlier in the campaign, he played his part in an important away victory.
Everton have had their share of luck on the road in recent weeks and they benefited from some “Papal” charity today for their second goal but the Magpies were even more beholden to Lady Luck and when they weren’t, they were denied by a world-class moment from Jordan Pickford.
The Toffees started this game in assured fashion, controlling possession and dictating the tempo and it would be 12 minutes before the hosts managed to fashion their first attack. By that stage, Iliman Ndiaye, back on his favoured left flank, had had the first sight of goal after jinking his way into space with his familiar dazzling feet and blazing narrowly over from around 20 yards out.
The Magpies’ response was a wayward side-foot effort from Joelinton but it was the Toffees who deservedly went ahead in the 19th minute. And after all the gnashing of Evertonian teeth over the brain-dead futility of the succession of identical WWE-style corners from Moyes’s side against United, the opener came from their first set-piece of the afternoon.
Thiaw had blocked Ndiaye’s attempted ball behind for a corner and when James Garner swept in the subsequent delivery, Branthwaite met it with a crisp glancing header that glided across goal and bounced in off the far post.
The concession of the goal inevitably spurred Newcastle into action and after Joelinton had seen a tame headed effort claimed by Pickford and Anthony Elanga had similarly failed to unduly test the England star with a low shot, they benefited from their first slice of good fortune 32 minutes in.
Sandro Tonali picked Jacob Ramsey out with an excellent pass and with time to line up a shot, the latter drove goal-wards, his effort taking a heavy deflection off Branthwaite’s out-stretched leg and looping over the helpless Pickford to make it 1-1.
Undaunted, Everton were back in front less than two minutes later, although they owed a big debt to Nick Pope’s error and Beto’s anticipation. McNeil deftly pulled James Tarkowski’s forward pass out of the air, turned away from Lewis Hall and fed Beto. The striker held it up long enough to lay it back to McNeil and when Pope failed to hold onto the winger’s speculative strike from distance, the Portuguese used his big strides to eat up the ground, beat the keeper to the loose ball and gleefully ram it into the net.
With the Barcodes toiling in front of a frustrated crowd, the rest of the first period was fairly comfortable for the Blues and only a dangerous cross from Anthony Gordon, one of his few notable contributions on the day, that Nick Woltemade couldn’t get any purchase on threatened Pickford’s goal before Stuart Attwell blew for half-time.
And apart from Kieran Trippier’s off-target direct free-kick there was precious little for the home fans to get behind for the first quarter of an hour, with Everton continuing to carry a threat going forward.
McNeil had had a tame shot saved early on and a VAR check affirmed Attwell’s decision not to award Beto a 49th-minute penalty for Hall’s sliding tackle but when O’Brien failed to keep the ball in his own half and Branthwaite was forced to head behind, Newcastle went close.
Gordon’s shot was spilled awkwardly by Pickford in front of goal but the ball was hacked away before Thiaw could pounce.
Five minutes later, Beto really should have put the ball in the net when he rolled his man on the touchline and was allowed to gallop clear despite howls from the home faithful that the ball had gone out of play. Unfortunately, with just Pope to beat, he belted his shot off the crossbar rather than finding the net but with replays clearly showing the ball was half a foot over the touchline, VAR could surely have chalked off any goal.
What followed was a period of sustained pressure from Newcastle that forced Everton back and it felt almost inevitable when the second equaliser came with eight minutes left of the 90.
Earlier, Pickford had got a hand to Trippier’s cross and, thankfully, substitute Harvey Barnes’s follow-up effort was poor while Joe Willock also cleared the crossbar with a 20-yard strike but it was another deflected drive that put the Magpies back level.
Joelinton did well to cut back and evade James Garner’s sliding block, spotted Jacob Murphy in space on the edge of the box and when he clipped it to the substitute, Murphy’s accurate volley took a nick off Idrissa Gueye and flew in.
Remarkably, within seconds of the resumption play, Everton were back in front and this time it was Thierno Barry’s turn to step off the bench to notch a vital away goal.
Collecting the ball 20 yards inside the opposition half as Gueye dispossessed Gordon, Ndiaye played a forward pass to Dewsbury-Hall who surged into the box. Rather than try for the top corner himself like he did at Wolves last August, the midfielder squared it neatly across the six-yard line where Barry was arriving for a simple tap-in.
Instead, he was bundled over by Hall but as the two players crashed to the turf, Barry’s momentum took the ball into the goal, no doubt sparing the full-back an automatic red card and Ndiaye the pressure of having to try and win the match from the penalty spot.
As Moyes threw Harrison Armstrong and Michael Keane on to shore things up, all three points were preserved by Pickford in astonishing fashion. Tonali must have been convinced that his thumping 20-yard volley off Keane’s clearing header was destined for the goal but displaying his cat-like reflexes, Pickford stuck up a glove and diverted the ball onto the post and behind. It was a quite brilliant hit by the Italian foiled by an even better save.
It’s true that Newcastle are struggling for consistency as much as Everton this season but this was a gutsy performance from the Blues where they refused to be denied. The pendulum felt as though it was swinging emphatically the Magpies’ way when they levelled in the 82nd minute but Gueye’s tenacity and the quality of Ndiaye and Dewsbury-Hall came together at the vital moment to put the visitors back in front.
For a manager who was not renowned for his success on the road during his first spell as Everton boss, Moyes has won half his away fixtures in the Premier League this season which has kept his team in the hunt for a place in Europe when, ordinarily, they’d be a bottom-half team.
Just imagine where we’d be if we could win at home…