Super sub Simms
For several transfer windows in recent years, Everton were linked with what would have been a record-breaking transfer for the then Napoli centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly. But with the Serie A club’s outspoken Aurelio De Laurentiis at one point slapping a €100m price tag on Koulibaly's head, it always seemed like Fantasy Football.
While such a move for the Senegalese international might have seemed ambitious – like bringing in his former coach Carlo Ancelotti to Goodison Park when his time at the same club was up – in reality it would have smacked of the wild profligacy that has dogged Farhad Moshiri’s ownership. Now in his 32nd year, Koulibaly finally made it to the Premier League last summer, joining Chelsea for the rather more knockdown price of £33m – still a figure greater than Everton have ever spent on a defender – but the hulking figure who for several seasons has been considered as being one of the strongest players in the game found himself brushed off with ease by Blues rookie Ellis Simms for what was his first goal in English top-flight football.
In contrast, Oldham-born Simms didn’t cost Everton a penny, joining them as a 16-year-old after spells with Blackburn Rovers and Manchester City in youth-team football. But what price could you put on the importance of this maiden strike? Moshiri told fans if the Blues needed a striker, they’d get one in the January transfer window but with no new signings forthcoming, it took a home-grown prospect, recalled from a loan spell at Sunderland, to step up and become the visitors’ saviour here.
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At 22, Simms is no kid but he remains green at this level and that fearlessness enabled him to earn his moment in the spotlight, showing great composure after a piece of great physicality. With Everton searching all the time for more goalscoring options, Simms now found the net as many times this season as both Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Neal Maupay.
On the double
Along with their record-breaking winless streak at Chelsea in the Premier League, this was Everton’s 12th game without victory in London full stop. But after four consecutive trips to the capital without scoring, they were back on target here.
For a team who has struggled for goals all season, that’s no mean feat, but the Blues actually went one better than that by finding the net twice in their second consecutive away game to replicate the 2-2 scoreline they had also achieved at Nottingham Forest. Until Everton went to the City Ground, they’d only scored more than one goal in a game twice all term, in the 2-1 comeback win at Southampton and 3-0 home win over Crystal Palace. But with Sean Dyche determined to find more ways of finding goals, they are now rewarding him on the road.
Whereas the Blues got their noses in front twice on Forest, here it was the other way round, and when you find yourself behind away from home – especially at a venue as intimidating as Stamford Bridge – then it shows a certain degree of resoluteness to fight your way back not once but twice so such character bodes well for the relegation dog fight ahead.
Practice makes perfect
While Everton ended up conceding twice here, in the circumstances you could still consider this to be an impressive defensive performance given the number of attacks that Chelsea fashioned. But the fact that the visitors clung on in there was testament to the effort they put in as a unit.
Many of Dyche’s coaching methods revolve around shape and while he wasn’t on the pitch assessing his troops personally during the pre-match warm-ups, the type of drills adopted by Everton’s back four as they prepared for this fixture was indicative of the unity within the group to operate as a collective. Moving up and down as a line, like they’d do in a game, Seamus Coleman, Michael Keane, James Tarkowski and Ben Godfrey went backwards and forwards as substitutes Conor Coady and Mason Holgate launched a series of aerial balls for them to deal with.
The training paid off, as for over 45 minutes the Blues were able to keep Chelsea’s galaxy of stars at bay and even after they were breached twice after the break they stuck to their task at hand and continued to put their bodies on the line for the cause, particularly when facing a string of dangerous corners in a nerve-jangling period of stoppage time. They’re a work in progress but this new-look Everton defence are certainly battling for each other.
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