After the elation of Monday night, the hard bite of reality. Everton have, at times, raised hopes that this season might hold more in store than mere Premier League survival or lower mid-table mediocrity with victories like those over Brighton and Wolves and the improbable win at Old Trafford. But then there are evenings like this where anything much better than treading water for now seems highly unlikely without significant moves in the January transfer window.
For the second time this season, Everton came up against a side at Bramley-Moore Dock with aerial prowess, either directly from set-pieces where Tottenham were so devastating in late October or from the second phase, and buckled in harrowing fashion. Coupled with a porous midfield and an opposition that sensed blood the moment they roared into a first-minute lead, the die was cast for the new stadium’s worst night yet.
Jordan Pickford’s weaknesses were ruthlessly exposed in tandem with the Blues’ new-found susceptibility from corners while Tim Iroegbunam’s suitability as a starting central midfielder at this level was once again brought into serious question.
Everton’s mid-section has frequently left cavernous spaces in front of its back four even when Idrissa Gueye was in the side but the Senegalese’s three-match suspension felt highly costly as Newcastle poured through, at times apparently at will, especially in the first half.
That Everton only shipped four goals against a team that hadn't won away from home since April is a little surprising in retrospect because the Barcodes were rampant at times. That the Blues only scored one themselves — a quite brilliant effort from Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, alongside Iliman Ndiaye perhaps the only player to come out with any real credit this time around — was also harsh because David Moyes’s men played some decent football at times; they just lacked cutting edge up top.
Thierno Barry broke his long scoring duck and then didn’t as Video Assistant Referee, Darren England, ruled he had handled the ball before finding the net for the first time as a Blue; Michael Keane might have scored were it not for a heavy deflection; and Carlos Alcaraz almost knocked the South Stand goal over with a thunderous drive after a clear handball on the line by Harvey Barnes was missed by all the officials (including the one with all the slow-motion replays at his disposal).
Had any of those incidents led to goals, it might have led to an exciting conclusion but it would also have papered over some serious cracks — in the club’s recruitment strategy, the painful lack of quality at full-back, and the way the manager sets out his team, particularly as it pertains to a lack of compactness in the midfield.
With Gueye banned until the 13th of December (by which point he might be on the way to join up with Senegal’s Africa Cup of Nations squad anyway) and Seamus Coleman nursing a hamstring problem, Moyes made obvious switches that saw Jake O’Brien come in at right-back and Iroegbunam into centre-midfield alongside James Garner.
Everything else was unchanged but whereas disaster took 13 minutes to strike against Manchester United five days ago, this time it took less than a minute. From their own kick-off, Everton somehow found themselves short-handed in their own half as Anthony Elanga galloped into space and drew a one-handed save from Jordan Pickford.
Just like against Tottenham, the Blues miserably failed to deal with the wickedly in-swinging corner. Garner appeared to have been charged with blocking the run of Malick Thiaw but lost him completely and the defender glanced home from close range with Jordan Pickford rooted to his line.
1-0 was almost 2-0 to the visitors before nine minutes had elapsed when Barnes was played in down the Magpies’ left but Keane did superbly to get enough purchase on his block to deflect what had been a goal-bound effort wide for a corner.
On either side of that chance, the hosts looked to be making a decent fist of trying to make amends for their terrible start. They moved the ball around with the most consistency of assurance and accuracy than perhaps at any time so far this season but they weren’t ever able to really trouble Aaron Ramsdale in the Newcastle at all.
Dan Burn made sure of that in the 11th minute then he got his body in the way of Keane’s sweetly-struck half-volley from the edge of the box and Barry could only head the resulting set-piece over the bar. A couple of minutes after that, Jack Grealish arrived on the overlap down the Toffees’ left flank and laid a delayed ball back to Dewsbury-Hall but the former Chelsea man’s shot was blocked and Garner’s miscued follow-up shot flew wide.
And Burn was in the right place again in the 17th minute when a lovely reverse pass by Grealish put Dewsbury-Hall in but his effort was cut out once more before it could threaten Ramsdale’s goal.
All that work to get back on even keel was undone, however, midway through the first period, starting when O’Brien was panicked into hacking the ball behind when he received no call from Jordan Pickford before looking imploringly at his goalkeeper.
The resulting Newcastle corner wasn’t properly cleared allowing the Magpies to retain the ball, Tino Livramento miscued horribly towards the corner flag but his shot was intercepted by Burn and when the ball fell to Lewis Miley, he bounced an effort towards goal that Pickford, unsighted once more by James Tarkowski’s deep positioning, flapped at horribly and it flew through his legs and in.
As Everton’s attacks consistently broke down in the final third, the most promising foundered when Barry tripped over an attempted through-ball by KDH, Newcastle came close to making it 3-0 on the half hour when Lewis Hall’s drive deflected off Keane’s out-stretched leg and looped onto the top of Pickford’s crossbar.
The inevitable was delayed by only a further quarter of an hour, though. Iroegbunam badly misjudged a ball down the channel that allowed Elanga to step inside him and prod a square pass to Nick Woltemade in oceans of space behind Everton’s absent centre-backs. The German still had plenty to do but he simply scooped the ball over Pickford with a deft chip that Garner couldn’t keep out despite his best efforts.
Needing to do something, Moyes withdrew the hapless Iroegbunam at the break and replaced him with Alcaraz. The change didn’t visibly address the big gaps in midfield as Dewsbury-Hall remained in a fairly advanced role but the Blues came very close to getting a foothold back in the contest in the first eight minutes of the restart.
First, Barry was played in for a rare, presentable chance but he stumbled under pressure from his marker and his eventual shot was too tame. Then, after Grealish had won a corner that Garner whipped in to the centre of the goal and nearly caught out Ramsdale, what looked to have been a punch by the keeper (later shown by replays to have been Barnes’s arm instead) sat up perfectly for Alcaraz. Unfortunately, the Argentine’s thumping effort crashed off the bar and away.
Not long after that, though, it was game over. Hall lofted a ball over the top for Barnes but Pickford did brilliantly to deny the winger with his feet. However, that led to another corner that wasn’t cleared, Tarkowski blocked Woltemade’s shot on the line and when Everton still could’t get the ball away, it was crossed back in by Hall where Thiaw powered a header back across goal and into the far corner with Pickford in no man’s land once more.
From then on it was really an exercise in damage limitation but Eddie Howe’s side were effectively done by this point and it became more about salvaging some pride for Moyes’s rabble. Barry rose with Burn to meet Vitalii Mykolenko’s cross and when he got enough on the ball for it to drop in front of him, he shinned a spinning shot into the corner of the goal. Sadly, the Frenchman’s glee at finally scoring in the Premier League was short-lived. VAR England had seen him head clumsily into his own arm before finding the net.
With 20 minutes to go, Everton did eventually get some consolation with an excellent goal by Dewsbury-Hall. He pulled Tarkowski’s flighted ball down with an exquisite first touch and took one more before stroking it past Ramsdale. It was a piece of magic deserving of winning a game, not simply making an ugly scoreline look a touch more respectable.
Pickford was called into action one more time to foil Jacob Ramsey and Dewsbury-Hall despatched a shot that narrowly cleared the crossbar after terrific work by substitute Tyler Dibling but the majority of the home crowd had long since dispersed.
If the unlikely win at Old Trafford had hinted at being some sort of watershed result that might drive Everton on to a push for Europe, this chastening contest will have put such fanciful notions to bed for the time being. This was a game that painfully exposed the lack of depth in Moyes’s squad in key areas.
Unless or until those are addressed, this is likely to be the season of consolidation it was expected to be at the outset. It’s frustrating given the upgrade in quality that Grealish and Dewsbury-Hall in particular represent but a good deal more patience is going to be required until more players of their calibre can be brought in.