Anemic Everton drop two more precious points at Brighton

Just dreadful. I can’t find any other words for that lame performance from Everton as they produce a truly awful effort at the Amex and drop another two points against Brighton.

There are times when I start to question why I’m an Everton supporter and tonight is just such a time! And in my view after this evening’s result the Toffees can all but forget about European qualification.

I wrote in the match preview that I felt the Blues simply had to get all three points against the Seagulls to give themselves a good chance still of getting a Europa League place, as the Champions League is long gone. With another draw tonight, personally I’m very doubtful that’s possible now.

After this sort of lame performance following last week’s failure to beat Crystal Palace, it looks a very tall order especially as those teams around the Blues, notably West Ham have been winning their matches.

At this time of the season it’s important to find your best form and a way to win these sorts of games and this team just can’t seem to do it.

Given Everton’s away form the match tonight and the potentially huge game at West Ham coming up are actually much more winnable than the home fixtures and so that’s why tonight seemed so important.

I know there is still eight games left and the Toffees have a match in hand on their rivals but there was no effort or energy about the team tonight, let alone any quality. To secure enough points to have any remote chance of Europe means winning three or four of those games at least, can this team do that?

Of course people will point to the latest injury setback, something which just seems to follow this team around like a bad smell. I know many clubs have injury problems especially this season, but Everton really do have no luck at all in this department.

Before the match Carlo Ancelotti had revealed that Dominic Calvert-Lewin was out and Allan hadn’t been passed fit either. So they joined Jordan Pickford and Abdoulaye Doucoure both out. The poverty of the Blues bench indicates just how little quality there is available. Then Yerry Mina was hurt and so Everton had lost him too.

Given all this Ancelotti picked Mason Holgate in midfield to support Tom Davies and decided to play Gylfi Sigurdsson on the right with James Rodriguez off lone striker Richarlison.

Moving Holgate into midfield meant he should have reverted to a back four in my view but Ancelotti stuck with a three meaning Micheal Keane played and he struggled again as he always does without enough pace alongside him.

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In midfield Sigurdsson offered nothing and Davies was outplayed by Brighton’s Bissouma who bossed the middle of the pitch.

Rodriguez tried hard and had moments of quality but he wasn’t at his best either. Without him able to get hold of the game there was precious little creativity from anyone else, apart from the odd penetrating run from Lucas Digne.

The Toffees had started ok but quickly subsided into a passive, defensive posture and whenever there was anything happening, which wasn’t often, it was actually Brighton who were the more positive team.

Everton were missing Calvert-Lewin’s presence and ability to hold the ball up and Richarlison was isolated and lacking any support.

I know he’s not exactly been setting the world on fire to put it mildly, but I would have given Alex Iwobi annother chance to play instead of Sigurdsson and try and provide a bit more pace and direct running in support of the Brazilian forward. And when he came on he had probably the Blues best chance, which par for the course he put over the bar.

Anyway the match was awful and neither team had the desire or quality to win it. The Seagulls did have several half-decent chances but Everton were so poor that they didn’t have a single shot on target until midway through the second half and that was there only one of the entire game.

It feels like the end of last season again and how that fizzled out as some of the players didn’t appear too bothered once European qualification seemed gone.

Now Friday’s clash with Tottenham is a massive ‘six-pointer’ as they say. Given Everton’s dreadful home form I don’t feel at all optimistic about their chances of winning it. Lose that game and I think that really will be it for this campaign.