Many of Everton’s players are likely to wake up with headaches tomorrow morning, such was the aerial bombardment they faced from Burnley’s direct tactics at Turf Moor but the stark reality is they’ll be facing a lot more opponents of this ilk if they suffer relegation to the Championship next month. Those associated with the Blues won’t want to say it publicly but their side have just been beaten in a ‘must not lose’ fixture.
Despite falling behind in lamentably predictable fashion from another set piece as Nathan Collins fired in at the back post from a corner-kick, Everton looked to have done the difficult work of fighting back and getting their noses in front by half-time with a brace of identikit coolly-taken penalties from Richarlison – the second of which came ironically via the helping hand of VAR – but if anything is even more excruciating for browbeaten Blues fans than their side’s woeful defending from dead ball situations, it’s the repeated manner in which individual mistakes are chronically costing them and threatening to lead them to the dreaded drop for the first time in 71 years.
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Everton played the better quality football here and looked to have the greater class but ultimately it counted for nothing as they failed to score from open play and saw Jonjoe Kenny skinned by Charlie Taylor in the build-up to Jay Rodriguez’s equaliser and then Ben Godfrey – who had otherwise defended stoically – shank a clearance that enabled the ball to be played back into the danger area for Maxwell Cornet to net the winner. They still haven’t sunk into the drop zone but this defeat will leave already beleaguered Evertonians fearing the worst while simultaneously providing fans of the Clarets with renewed hope.
