To lose once after leading 2-0 could be deemed misfortune; to do so twice in succession smacks of carelessness. Not even Oscar Wilde would have come up with a script such as this but then the narrative around Everton pushes the bounds of credulity on a weekly basis.
Lee Carsley witnessed Ollie Watkins, who withdrew from the interim England manager’s first senior squad, return to action to score twice as Aston Villa followed Bournemouth’s example by giving Everton a two-goal lead before winning, this time with an outrageous long-distance shot from Jhon Durán.
Villa, who return to European football’s top table on Tuesday when they play Young Boys in the Champions League, moved level on points with second-placed Liverpool.
For Everton, however, this feels like rock bottom. But then we said that last time out, when they led 2-0 after 86 minutes. This is the first time they have lost their first four league games since 1958. Next Saturday’s trip to Leicester looks significant. Having had the third best defensive record in the division last season, they have already leaked 13 goals this term.
Notwithstanding the Bournemouth collapse, Everton fans were in dreamland within half an hour here, as Dwight McNeil scored one goal and made another for Dominic Calvert-Lewin, only to feel the nightmare returning when Watkins pulled one back before half-time. If Calvert-Lewin had scored when going clean through shortly after the break, “it’s 3-1 and we’re not having this conversation”, Sean Dyche said.
The Everton manager also pointed out that, having lost Séamus Coleman to injury during the international break and with Jarrad Branthwaite not quite ready to return, the loss of Vitalii Mykolenko to illness during the first half required more rejigging.
No one could have complained about value for money in an intoxicating, thrillingly oscillating match. The proposed protest against Villa’s pricing for a Champions League ticket (£100 for non-season ticket holders) fizzled out before it began and Unai Emery’s side started with purpose before Everton scored their goals.
Everton fans were chanting Amadou Onana’s name after their former player, who joined Villa for £50m in the summer, started the game sluggishly and was dispossessed by McNeil, who drilled his shot into the far bottom corner. He became the first Everton player to score a league goal at Villa Park since Romelu Lukaku.
Then McNeil, enjoying his central attacking role, swung in a free-kick from the right for Calvert-Lewin to time his run perfectly and follow up his goal against Bournemouth by heading home from close range.
Yet Everton remain vulnerable. At a club where a prospective owner can start casting doubts over his manager’s selection policy before he has even sold his shares in his current club, John Textor having asked whether Dyche was the sort to pick more sophisticated players, Everton fans are all too accustomed to things going wrong even when they seem to be going right.
So when Watkins climbed high to head in Lucas Digne’s left-wing cross for his first goal of the season, everyone in the ground was anticipating delicious drama.
Villa had a plethora of great chances, their positive substitutions making them even more potent, but how Calvert-Lewin will rue the chance he passed up, after being sent clear by McNeil only to allow Ezri Konsa to catch up and clear after he had rounded Emiliano Martínez.
Within four minutes Watkins equalised, as Jack Harrison, preventing Youri Tielemans’ great through ball to Digne, only succeeded in passing straight to the England striker six yards from goal. He slotted gratefully home.
With Emery rotating his increasingly deep squad in this first of seven games in three weeks, a winning goal looked inevitable. Sure enough, Durán came up with a magical strike 14 minutes from time, unloading a fulminating strike from 30 yards into the top corner, his third goal coming off the bench this season.
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“I have seen it from behind and I saw the ball moving,” Martínez said. “It was unstoppable. If he can keep the consistency he can be a really big threat. He can be one of the best strikers in the world, but he needs to keep his feet on the ground and to work hard. He has one of the top strikers [Watkins] in England playing in front of him.”
There was still time for Calvert-Lewin to shoot against the underside of the crossbar. What price Premier League excitement like this?
