David Moyes has secured some crucial wins for Everton over the years but his 3-1 triumph with West Ham United against Leeds United has got to be up there.
The Hammers’ comeback victory against the Yorkshiremen ensures that unless Leicester City are able to spoil Newcastle United’s Champions League party in front of over 52,000 at St James’ Park on Monday night, the Blues will go into their final game of the Premier League season with their destiny back in their own hands and out of the drop zone. While the final result at the London Stadium proved favourable for Sean Dyche’s side, the afternoon felt anything but straightforward for Evertonians whose nerves are shot.
The contest of course pitted Moyes – whose team went into the game on the back of reaching the UEFA Europa Conference League final against old foes Fiorentina – against another former Blues boss in the shape of Sam Allardyce. With Leeds now Everton’s direct rivals to stay up, such was the need for the East End outfit to do them a favour, one former Blues player had even texted this correspondent on Sunday morning to joke that he’d had jellied eels for his breakfast – at least I think he was joking.
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‘Big Sam’, whose own tenure was somewhat shorter and much less sweeter than the Scot’s (little over five months as to opposed to 11 years) had proclaimed it was “do or die” for his current employers but just 17 minutes in, Everton fans who had tuned in on the back of being put through the mincer at Molineux less than 24 hours earlier before Yerry Mina secured a share of the spoils with his 99th-minute equaliser, might have been forgiven if they’d chosen to watch from behind their couches. A long throw from Weston McKennie was pumped into the home box and Rodrigo caught it flush on the volley and fired past Lukasz Fabianksi.
For 14 excruciating minutes, the Blues faced the prospect of Leeds pushing them into the relegation zone ahead of the Bournemouth fixture but in the end, the game went with the form book. Just after the half-hour mark, captain Declan Rice – on what is expected to be his final home appearance in a Hammers shirt – restored parity when he drove a Jarrod Bowen cross into the ground and it bounced up to beat former Everton goalkeeper Joel Robles, who ended up in the back of his own net.
It felt like a watershed moment in the battle for survival as Leeds instantly suffered a double blow with Patrick Bamford going off through injury, just as the Blues had lost their No.9 Dominic Calvert-Lewin the previous day. This might have been the scene of the last victory for popular former Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa – who was strongly linked with the Goodison Park vacancy after Frank Lampard’s departure – but while this was the 12th consecutive game in which they both scored and conceded, a more telling statistic perhaps was that they would be heading for a seventh straight defeat in the capital after Bowen latched onto Danny Ings’ through-ball in the 72nd minute to put Moyes’ men ahead.
The visitors’ morale seemed to collapse after such a body blow with Lucas Paqueta finding substitute Manuel Lanzini for a third in stoppage time, although Evertonians might have been getting slightly ahead of themselves if they rued further West Ham chances that were spurned in the dying seconds to further erode Leeds’ goal difference (now -27 to the Blues’ -24).
The mental exhaustion these trials and tribulations put the loyal but long-suffering Everton fanbase through are truly debilitating but for now at least they live to fight another day while raising a glass to Moyes and hoping he can do them another turn at the King Power Stadium in a week’s time.
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