An Everton winger had been in the spotlight this week and it wasn’t Demarai Gray. Chelsea’s interest in Anthony Gordon resulted in a £45m bid but Everton’s first point of the season came from a man acquired for just £1.75m last summer. A third successive defeat beckoned, along with their worst ever Premier League start, until Gray delivered a goal his electric display merited to deny Nottingham Forest a second successive victory and a first on the road in the top flight since 1999.
Jordan Pickford was his unlikely supplier. Perhaps the Everton goalkeeper could have done better when Forest took the lead, parrying Ryan Yates’s shot to Brennan Johnson, who slotted in unchallenged, but he turned creator by drilling a 70-yard pass to Gray, who escaped behind Forest’s defence to finish with composure.
