Another game to show off the concertinaed qualities of the Premier League this season. If anyone can beat anyone, they can also play out landlocked contests such as this.
It took a deflection to win it, Jack Grealish’s shot smashing off Bafodé Diakité’s shins and into the opposite corner. Two clubs from the mid-table blob that stretches from seventh to 15th fought and ran hard, effort never in short supply. The same could not always be said of quality, entertainment or chance creation.
If you can’t be good, be lucky? Grealish, recently struggling for form, celebrated with the Everton faithful who have taken him to their hearts. In turn, he has fallen for his manager. “I love the manager to pieces,” he said of David Moyes. “I’ve only known him a few months, and I can’t speak highly enough of him as a person.”
“I don’t know if I like that,” a smiling Moyes said in reply to the sweet nothings. “Players didn’t used to like me.” He chose instead to highlight his loan star’s work ethic. “He’s not one to come off after 60 minutes, he’s not showboating.”
For Bournemouth, winless in November, losing from a two-goal winning position at Sunderland, was followed by another low ebb. The early-season flavour of the month is losing its taste. Inconsistencies that denied the team European qualification last season have returned.
Winning at Bournemouth’s stadium, where they had never won a Premier League game, having been the better team in the second half sets up Everton, three wins from four, the Newcastle nightmare of Saturday made up for, far better for the festive grind. “We are in a difficult situation in the difficult moment of the season,” Andoni Iraola said.
“You have to trust yourself. You have to, when everything costs a lot, keep believing. I hope we can recover.”
Everton’s thin squad was stretched but squeezed through a significant test. Idrissa Gueye was absent through suspension, and Michael Keane from defence. It meant James Garner played emergency right-back, and won his duel with Antoine Semenyo, a key battle in a victory achieved via Evertonian graft rather than the School of Science of which their fans sang.
“Brilliant effort, considering what we had available to us,” Moyes said. “Maybe we caught Bournemouth at the right time.” He had enjoyed getting one over on one of the Premier League’s hippest tastemakers, Iraola’s team rendered unusually passive, the Basque saying: “Everything was going almost like slow motion.”
Moyes said: “These midweek games can be a bit slow because of games at the weekend.”
As the teams scratched for coherence in the first half, the chilly evening air of the Vitality Stadium, strangely devoid of crowd noise, was filled with Iraola’s and Moyes’s exhortations. Carlos Alcaraz in particular had Moyes right on his case, the Argentinian asked to chase every lost cause. Semenyo, on the left, Adrien Truffert overlapping beyond him, was asked to push at Garner’s perceived weakness, though to little avail.
Everton continued to be scrappy beyond the break. Thierno Barry notched his first shot on target of the league season, though it did not trouble Djordje Petrovic, while Grealish was repeatedly guilty of wayward passing. Barry’s wild thrash of a Garner pass was met with affectionate cheers from fans who appreciate the striker’s endeavour if not his precision.
“The game opened up in the second half – it was about who made the most of it,” Moyes said. After Alcaraz had followed his manager’s instructions to chase everything that moved to claim a loose ball, Grealish took aim. The deflection left Petrovic helpless, fine margins and fortune seizing three points that pushed Everton above Bournemouth in that mid-table morass.
