Here are the Everton player ratings.
The closely contested affair ended after one moment of brilliance from Leeds United’s Raphinha. The elastic goalkeeping from Jordan Pickford and Illanm Meslier restricted the game to witness just 1 goal. For the most part of the game, it was an end to end affair. With no proper full backs, Everton were highly susceptible to Leeds’ intensity. The slightly weak centre back pairing of Leeds presented the boys in Royal Blue plenty of chances to hurt the Whites.
Everton’s defence still needs repairing. The absence of Lucas Digne for two months is going to haunt the Toffees. Alex Iwobi and Tom Davies as wing backs clearly can’t be the solution. It came as a shock to me to not see Niels Nkounkou, neither in the lineup nor on the bench.
With this loss, Everton have now taken only three points out of possible 15 in the last five games, a stark contrast of Everton’s early season showings. With a hectic and a jam packed December coming up, Carlo Ancelotti needs to solve the problems and remain optimistic that his solutions bear sweet fruits on the field.
Jordan Pickford – 8
Pickford had one of the strongest games of the season, pulling off some brilliant saves throughout the 90 minutes. Yes, Everton do have a miserable clean sheet record, failing to keep a clean sheet in the last 11 games but there’s very little to blame the Englishman for that. The 26 year old made 5 decisive saves.
Pickford needs more displays like this to regain his shaky confidence. If he can continue to build on this, the amount of criticism he is getting will drastically die.