A lethargic and very average Everton just managed to overcome a spirited Rotherham United in today’s FA Cup third round tie.
Everton went into this match with the knowledge this was the last trophy the club can win this season after the Carabao Cup quarter-final defeat.
Carlo Ancelotti started with both his first-choice full-backs Seamus Coleman and Lucas Digne, back from injury and also rested several other players with Tom Davies, Andre Gomes, Anthony Gordon and Cenk Tosun coming in.
The Blues started reasonably well and got an early goal when Tosun scored with a cheeky finish. At that point you might have thought the Toffees would go on and score three or four.
But as so often with the Blues that wasn’t the case and Everton went into the sort of coasting performance that has so often characterised so many games, including recently.
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Rotherham United grew in confidence and came more and more into the game. They began to dominate the match and the Toffees fell back on the back foot.
As so often in these early rounds of the Cup, the Championship side seemed to be free of the shackles of their relegation battle in the league and were playing better than the home team.
Everton were struggling badly to get any grip on the game and it showed. The poverty of the home team’s performance was yet another worrying sign of the lack of quality in the squad overall. These performances keep happening.
Inevitably as might have been expected Rotherham did get back into the game and they found a well deserved equaliser when they scored early in the second half.
The Blues were unable to raise their game and the match went into extra-time. Ancelotti had made a raft of changes then bringing on Bernard, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Abdoulaye Doucoure and Niels Nkounkou.
And eventually after a goal from Tosun was ruled out, the Toffees managed to find a winner as Doucoure netted to finally get Everton through to the next round.
And that is all that can be said about today’s match; at least the Blues are through and let’s hope that performances will improve in later rounds.