Everton and Sean Dyche are playing a dangerous game if they cannot confront the obvious
There may have been an acceptance Everton’s plight could become worse before it got better. But this is a club that has to stop finding new ways to shock its long-suffering supporters.
There are two ways to look at this defeat to Aston Villa. On one hand, Everton made their Champions League opponent fight for this victory.
They stunned Villa Park with two first half goals, Dominic Calvert-Lewin had several golden opportunities to swing momentum back in favour of the Blues and it took an extraordinary long-range effort to bring down a squad whose injury concerns mounted further as Vitalii Mykolenko headed down the tunnel in the first half.
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On the other hand, there is much to suggest there are deeper issues that need to be addressed. Acknowledging they exist is the first step to solving them. The reality is this is a side that has lost four consecutive games in a miserable start to this Premier League campaign, has imploded in each of them, and lost from being two goals ahead for a second game in a row.
Like against Bournemouth two weeks ago, there are positives that can be taken from this 3-2 defeat. But there is a bigger pattern developing, one of defensive fragility, a loss of psychological resilience and of important, experienced players making errors that have proved costly.
The real contrast between two difficult losses separated by an international break has been that against Bournemouth the collapse was a rapid, hurtling, nine-minute crash. This one was a slow motion capitulation, one that took an hour to unfold, even if it was punctuated by opportunities.
Of most concern is there was an inevitability to it that has to quickly be addressed at Finch Farm. The Carabao Cup offered Everton the chance to launch their season last year and may do so again when Southampton visit in the third round on Tuesday night. But whatever happens under the lights at Goodison in midweek, the trip to Leicester City next Saturday night will be a game of significance.
The Blues could have finished Villa off. While 2-1 up, Dwight McNeil sent Calvert-Lewin through and he had time to get the ball under his control, size up Emiliano Martinez and decide to round him. But for all his advantage, time did not stop and his caution allowed Ezri Konsa to rescue his team.
Everton could have equalised after going behind too. Calvert-Lewin - a threat throughout this match - fashioned space on the edge of the box and unleashed a ferocious shot that thundered off the crossbar. Had either of those chances been taken the course of this contest could have changed. But neither were. And here we are again.
And for all that could have been, Ollie Watkins produced a similar display of fascination and frustration at the other end. At 0-0 his header was cleared off the line by Iliman Ndiaye and he poked a Lucas Digne cross high over the bar. With the game in the balance, Watkins was inches from meeting a Morgan Rogers cross as the pair found space behind the Blues defence and later shot wide when in space again as he met a ball by Ian Maatsen.
There were too many chances for this to be a defeat written off as a frenetic thriller that could have been won by either side. Once they scored their first goal, Watkins climbing over Michael Keane to meet a back post Digne cross after the defender was sent into space by another Everton old boy, Amadou Onana, the hosts showed composure as they probed the away defence through Youri Tielemans and, in the second half, another familiar figure in Ross Barkley.
Everton had spent 15 minutes fighting for a foothold in this match when McNeil sprung forward and stole the ball from Onana, who lay stricken as his former team-mate drove toward the box before placing his shot into the far corner to send the away end wild.
They were off their seats again 11 minutes later, but not before more drama in the middle. Everton’s tough start has been hindered by injuries at the back. The problems could soon ease - both Jarrad Branthwaite and Nathan Patterson returned to training this week. But it has become worse before getting better.
After Seamus Coleman lost his battle for fitness in the days before this game, Sean Dyche was already adding further patches to his patchwork defence by starting Ashley Young at right-back. The veteran ended up on the left midway through the first half as Mykolenko walked down the tunnel with what appeared to be his fourth injury in five months, though Dyche later said the full-back had felt unwell. Centre-midfielder James Garner replaced him and moved to right back.
There was no time to dwell on another round of tough luck though. Everton won a free-kick on the right, deep in the Villa half. McNeil’s cross was nodded in by Calvert-Lewin and Villa Park was shell shocked.
The home supporters roared their team on from the restart but the noise was sporadic and punctured by yelps and groans of frustration as attacks broke down. The Blues had thrown away a two-goal lead a fortnight ago and this was set to be a test of the team’s character and discipline. The initial signs were worrying, Everton continuing to burst forward and helping to create a slugfest that put them in danger.
Villa initially capitalised. Onana, whose name had been sung in jest by the away end, was serenaded by his new supporters after he picked out Digne and Watkins provided the finish.
A second could easily have followed when Tielemans, who constructed attack after attack, picked out Rogers behind the defence but the forward’s first touch prevented him from taking advantage. Everton held firm through seven testing minutes of stoppage time and made the break with a precious lead.
The question was whether they could hold off the onslaught that would follow the break. Bar for the forays forward - through which they could and should have eased the pressure on themselves and Dyche - they were unable to. Barkley was introduced for Onana and became another controlling influence in the middle. He almost had an immediate impact when he played his part in an intricate move that ended with Rogers forcing Jordan Pickford into a good save and Garner blocking from Ramsey.
Dyche tinkered, changing players and formation, but could not find a way for his side to assert control. The chances kept coming but the Blues were once again complicit in their downfall.
Watkins could not believe his fortune when Jack Harrison’s clearance on the right skewed into his path as he ran towards goal. He could not miss that one, though he failed to clinch a hat-trick that was available to him through the chances his team-mates continued to create.
Unlike Calvert-Lewin, his misses did not come back to haunt his side, however. Jhon Duran snatched the winner with a stunning long-range effort. But again, this was an area of greater complexity than it may initially have appeared. Everton, loaded with defensive players and fighting to protect a valuable point, allowed him time and space to unleash his wonder-strike.
That goal was, in some ways, the perfect example of the Blues’ problems right now. There lies a danger in assuming Duran’s effort was unstoppable. There lies a danger in assuming Everton’s terrible start can be simply put down to a host of injuries in a threadbare squad, that repeated mistakes from key players are the result of mere misfortune and that every game could so easily have produced a different outcome.
Dyche appeared to dismiss the Bournemouth collapse as a freak incident that did not need forensic examination. To an extent, international duty prevented that anyway. Yet there are clearly deeper issues at play right now. If the search for answers had not begun two weeks ago, it must begin now. And it has to start with an acknowledgement that those questions exist.