Blame game
It was an inevitability that protesting Everton fans who stayed back after the final whistle chanted “sack the board” – they’ve been saying that since the shambolic 4-1 capitulation against Brighton & Hove Albion 11 days earlier – but while calls of “You’re not fit to run the club” followed during the post-match sit-in, they came after a new cry of “You’re not fit to wear the shirt.” The chaos, the heartache and abject misery around the Blues right now is such that nobody can be absolved from blame, particularly the players on the pitch who are ultimately responsible for results and shaping the club’s fortunes.
This wasn’t a ragged display like the horror show against the Seagulls last time out – one tiny crumb of comfort for long-suffering Evertonians at this time of crisis could be seeing that the upwardly mobile Sussex outfit have just beaten their neighbours by the same margin – but the fragility around this team is such that they never looked entirely convincing when defending their lead and so it proved. Sequels might be a handy way for Hollywood film studios to make lots of money but they’re often not as good as the original and so this proved for Everton on the day their fans revived the concept of the passionate Goodison Park coach welcome.
