Sean Dyche’s Everton are now an effective unit when they have a lead to protect and boy did they prove it against Brentford.
As Everton’s official statistician and regular guest on the ECHO’s Royal Blue podcast Gavin Buckland pointed out on Saturday night, Dwight McNeil’s goal against the Bees after 35 seconds was the club’s earliest winner ever at Goodison Park. Given that the Blues have been playing at the first purpose-built football ground in England for over 130 years, that’s quite an achievement when you consider that for all she’s experienced, ‘The Grand Old Lady’ had never actually seen a game quite like this.
In total there were 11 additional minutes played in the match (five in the first half and six in the second) but after getting their noses in front in the first minute, the Blues were able to hold their nerve and keep out everything a dangerous Brentford side who (along with Borussia Dortmund in Germany and France’s Stade de Reims, coached by 30-year-old Belgian-born Englishman Will Still) went into this fixture as one of only three teams in Europe’s big five leagues unbeaten this calendar year. Under a manager who is as ‘Frank’ as his name, the west London outfit have proven to be a breath of fresh air since making their return to the top flight for the first time since 1947 last season, and in many ways their canny recruitment, polishing up relatively unheard of rough diamonds into leading Premier League performers has been in stark contrast to the profligacy and chronic underachievement during the current regime at Everton that had fans protesting in the streets outside the ground again before kick-off.
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Legendary Blue Howard Kendall is credited with netting their fastest-ever goal, a mere 14 seconds into a 5-2 romp against Chelsea on March 28, 1970 as Everton closed in on their seventh League championship, while McNeil’s goal wasn’t quite the Blues’ quickest ever in the Premier League era. John Ebbrell still holds that crown after netting at Wimbledon after just 23 seconds on January 1, 1996 to set Joe Royle’s side on their way to a 3-2 victory and that was from a rebound after Hans Segers had saved Paul Rideout’s initial shot from Duncan Ferguson’s right wing cross –perhaps there were still a few fuzzy heads in the Crazy Gang’s dressing room that day after seeing in the New Year?
At Goodison, Romelu Lukaku (6-3 v Bournemouth: February 4, 2017) and Tom Davies (4-2 v Leicester City: April 9, 2017) were both clocked at 30 seconds, little more than two months apart, which might make you wonder what Ronald Koeman was giving them in their pre-match meals around that time, while David Unsworth seemingly had his three Shredded Wheat when he got David Moyes’ tenure off to a flier when hitting the net 32 seconds into the 2-1 victory against Fulham on March 16, 2002. In all of these games, though, these first-minute strikes were only the prelude to more goals later on.
In his pre-match press conference ahead of Brentford’s visit, Dyche had waxed lyrical about how the one-nils are managers’ favourite scoreline and he was able to afford himself a little chuckle when reminded about this after the game. Inheriting an unbalanced squad with a surfeit of centre-backs but a ridiculous lack of attacking options, the Everton manager is having to make do with the tools at his disposal in trying to stave off the threat of what would be the club’s first relegation in 72 years after failing to learn the lessons of coming disgustingly close to the drop last season with the joint-lowest equivalent points total in their history.
Having got Burnley to punch above their weight for the best part of a decade at Turf Moor, operating with the Premier League’s smallest budget in its smallest market, the 51-year-old is well-versed with having to eke out every ounce of talent from the group he works with, with a lot of his methods based around shape. Given the paucity of potential game-changing options on the bench, the match against Brentford followed a similar pattern to Everton’s other matches so far under Dyche, especially at home, as they came out of the blocks quickly before having to dig in as they tired while their opponents were able to shuffle the pack with fresh legs.
Unlike their previous fixture at Nottingham Forest six days earlier, though, when they netted twice for the first time since October, the Blues were able to hold on to their early lead, heading and kicking away everything that Thomas Frank’s side threw at them. In the end, having been thwarted all afternoon, the visitors from the capital were forced to try that most desperate of acts that remains a long-standing pet hate of this correspondent, sending their goalkeeper up for a corner that he inevitably headed wide.
I’m with Aston Villa manager Unai Emery, who chastised his own maverick custodian Emiliano Martinez on this one after he came a cropper late on against Arsenal last month. While Alisson of Liverpool deserves credit for possessing what his manager Jurgen Klopp described as the “insane technique” to nod in at West Bromwich Albion, it remains the only headed goal from a keeper in over eleven-and-a-half thousand Premier League matches so far, which isn’t tempting odds.
Although VAR would go on to deny them what would have been their first 2-0 half-time lead for 13 months since predecessor Frank Lampard’s first Premier League home game against Leeds United, one goal was enough for Everton on this occasion, not just in ensuring victory but also in ensuring they were no longer the lowest scorers in the whole of the top six divisions in the English pyramid, which had been one of the complaints made in fan group the NSNOW Campaign’s open letter on Friday to Everton board member and non-executive director Graeme Sharp, the second highest scorer in the club’s history. As pointed out previously, if the Blues are to survive then it might be averaging less than a goal a game. but if anyone is going to be able to mastermind that achievement then Dyche, who holds the Premier League record for the highest-ever position with such a team (seventh with Burnley in 2017/18) is the man to do it.
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