Striking the right balance
Everton have had to wait over two months for their main striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin to start a match but you wonder just how long they’d have had to play here to actually score a goal. The Blues number nine, who had been missing ever since he picked up what Frank Lampard described as “a freak injury” on the eve of the campaign before returning with a couple of cameo displays off the bench in the previous two defeats against Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, did offer a different dimension up front but his team-mates largely failed to exploit it.
There were a couple of efforts of note, one in each half, but again it was woefully slim pickings. Before the break, Calvert-Lewin headed over from a Demarai Gray corner-kick while after the interval he forced a save from Nick Pope’s legs when played through by Alex Iwobi but it wouldn’t have counted as one of those now typically late flags for offside was raised.
