What a game that was! Everton eventually beat Tottenham in a nine goal thriller at Goodison Park last night as they won 5-4 after extra-time to progress to the FA Cup quarter-finals.
In a rollercoaster of a game, first Spurs went ahead then Everton were twice in the lead and twice Spurs pulled them back before substitute Bernard’s strike finally proved the difference.
I don’t know what odds you would have got with bookmakers on this scoreline before yesterday’s match, very long odds I think!
Going into the match both managers had some selection decisions to make with big games coming up and a relentless fixture schedule.
For the Toffees Carlo Ancelotti decided to bring in Gylfi Sigurdsson in midfield and after coming off injured early at Old Trafford, James Rodriguez sat out the match with Alex Iwobi in for him. Ancelotti also moved Ben Godfrey to right-back, as we had suggested he might do, restoring Yerry Mina to central defence alongside Micheal Keane.
Ancelotti was saved having to make a choice about who would play between the posts as Jordan Pickford was still not fit so Robin Olsen continued in goal.
For the Blues opponents, Jose Mourinho had to decide whether his biggest star, Harry Kane, was ready to start or whether to rest him for Saturday’s clash with Premier League leaders Manchester City. Kane started on the bench with Mourinho probably hoping he wouldn’t need to call on his talisman forward.
And in the opening quarter of an hour it looked as though he was right. Tottenam started much the better of the two teams and they were playing with energy, commitment and quality creating chances and putting Everton under considerable pressure.
Seemingly inevitably Spurs got their reward for this spell when they took the lead from a set-piece (something that would be a theme of the evening), Davison Sanchez scoring their goal.
In truth at this stage the home team looked like they were struggling to get into the match, but then in crazy seven minutes or so the game turned on it’s head.
The Toffees had clawed their way back into it when Dominic Calvert-Lewin levelled with a shot Hugo Lloris should have saved, apparently it’s not just Everton keepers who make errors!.
Then Richarlison came to life. The Brazilian has been way below par recently and has had little impact on most of the Blues recent matches but now he found his form again. As the Blues upped their game, he rifled a nice shot into the net for 2-1 and Everton were suddenly in front.
Then came a penalty that Spurs will probably argue was a little debatable, mind you there are so many of them these days what actually is a ‘soft’ penalty in 2021!?
Calvert-Lewin burst into the box and looked as though he had been caught and so a penalty it was and VAR didn’t overturn it. Sigurdsson calmly stroked the ball past Lloris and from nowwhere Everton were 3-1 up and cruising.
But this match still had plenty more in store for us. With half-time approaching Spurs scored again though Eric Lamela to make it game on once more.
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In the second half Kane came on and Calvert-Lewin went off with a possible hamstring injury and Tottenham were inevitably revived by this swap of centre-forwards. But it was their Colombian centre-back and Mina’s international team-mate Sanchez who again scored for the London club.
Once more Everton were undone by a set-play this time a corner and after failing to clear the ball, Sanchez got to it first and stabbed it home, 3-3.
Now the match was just a free-flowing goal-fest and it was anyone’s guess who would score next and what the final result would be.
It was the home team who restored their lead with Sigurdsson (who was having a good match pulling the strings), playing Richarlison in on the left. The angle looked tight but the Brazilian rifled a shot across Lloris and in.
Surely now that was it. But to their credit Spurs didn’t fold and came again. With less then ten minutes to go Kane inevitably got on the scoresheet atter fine work from Son Heung-min whose excellent cross he met to equaliser yet again.
Neither team or manager wanted extra-time but that’s what we got now. There were more chances with Kane nearly scoring again and then Sigurdsson with perhaps the pass of the match dinked the ball deftly over the Tottenham defence for Bernard to fired home with a powerful left-foot finish similar to his fellow Brazilian Richarlison.
The Toffees held on now as both teams finally tired and saw it out for a remarkable 5-4 win. While that was truly old-fashioned entertaining stuff, these sorts of games give managers and fans heart palpatations and I doubt Ancelotti will want to see that sort of match again this season!