Outclassed Everton suffer sobering defeat at Chelsea in top four clash

Everton lost the battle of the top four contenders tonight and went down to a 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge so their fine winning run away from home is now over.

This was a match Everton never looked remotely like winning. Indeed it was actually hard to see them even getting a point such was their lack of threat once a deflected Kai Havertz shot had gone in off Ben Godfrey for Chelsea’s opener.

If the young defender was unlucky with that deflection, Chelsea were not lucky to win this match. They dominated the game showing, just as Manchester City did a few weeks ago, how far the Toffees still are from competing with the very best in the Premier League.

In fact based on that performance I would say that Chelsea are the best side, apart from City, that Everton have played this season.

Going into the match Carlo Ancelotti had to cope with more injuries and started with another new-look side. He had a three-man defence of Mason Holgate, Micheal Keane and Ben Godfrey with Alex Iwobi coming in as a right wing-back opposite Lucas Digne. I don’t think it worked.

In midfield Abdoulaye Doucoure couldn’t shake off his knock and so was unavailable. His energy and workrate were badly missed as Chelsea almost totally dominated the middle of the park.

Up front there was again no place for Josh King from the start. I’m a little perplexed by this because unless he’s still not 100% fit, I think this was a game when the Blues needed as much pace and threat behind Chelsea as possible. I feel that he would have offered another forward option to hit on the break.

And while I can see why he picked Gylfi Sigurdsson – to try and give the Toffees some ball-control and create chances in James Rodriguez’s absence – having him and Gomes together meant the Blues lacked enough energy, pace and workrate and there was not enough support for Allan battling hard to stem the Chelsea tide.

At any rate, the home team were quickly out of the blocks and to be honest apart from a very brief period just before halftime, Everton were never in this match.

Although Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison worked hard, they were feeding from scraps and any time there was a half chance it seemed to fail from a missed pass or something similar. It was just one of those nights.

Chelsea controlled possession but early on for all the ball they had they weren’t creating that many clear-cut chances. Then after half an hour German forward Havertz’s shot took a big diversion off the luckless Godfrey and went past Jordan Pickford.

As so often seems to happen to Everton, Havertz who has struggled to find his feet in English football, decided tonight was the time to finally produce his best form and he was the most dangerous Chelsea player.

More from Prince Rupert's Tower

Despite that brief spell of pressure before the break, which included the visitors only shot on target from Gomes, in the second half it was more of the same with the home team controlling the ball and the Toffees largely chasing shadows.

Havertz thought he had scored again but he had used his arm and it was ruled out. Then the German burst through the Everton defence and Pickford seemed to bring him down for a penalty. Jorginho converted it and at two nil that was bascially that.

The Toffees never looked remotely like coming back or even getting a consolation goal. Ancelotti brought on Tom Davies, King and finally Bernard but it didn’t make any difference and it was only a string of saves from Pickford that kept the score respectable.

This was the match when Everton’s strategy away from home of conceding possession and to a large extent the initiative, didn’t work. Chelsea were too good and the lack of any grip in midfield, mainly the result of Doucoure’s absence, cost the away team dearly.

So the Toffees long barren run at Stamford Bridge continues and on this evidence it will be quite a while yet before they can end it. And more importantly this was a damaging defeat in the race for Europe with West Ham beating Leeds, so Everton have slipped to sixth.