I suppose it had to happen eventually and last night Everton lost their unbeaten record as the Blues went down to a heavy defeat against Aston Villa.
Injuries once again caught up with Everton yesterday as the team was missing it’s England international goalkeeper and centre-forward as well as Brazilian star Richarlison and then Seamus Coleman and with a new striker making his full debut.
I know I’ve said it before but it really is amazing sometimes how little luck with injuries this club has. So given all that defeat is really not too suprising.
The away team looked disjointed in attack and the verve and energy of recent matches wasn’t there, understandably without two key quality international forwards on the pitch.
In addition, the midfielders especially Abdoulaye Doucoure, couldn’t exert as much influence as in previous games and Salomon Rondon the lone centre-forward, was isolated and looked rusty and lacking the necessary sharpness.
These absences again starkly exposed the lack of depth in the Blues squad and underline the urgent need to find a way to bring in reinforcements in upcoming transfer windows.
However, despite losing four of their best players, for large portions of the game the Toffees actually held their own and the match was a competitive if largly uneventful one.
In a way it was a lot like Monday’s game against Burnley. Not a great deal happened in the first half but then a few critical moments in the second period turned the match around.
This is what often happens between evenly matched sides in the Premier League when a few incidents and which team can find that extra five percent in performance makes all the difference.
There had been few chances for either team before with just under half an hour to go Villa opened the scoring through Matt Cash who smashed the ball past Asmir Begovic.
This goal though came soon after Everton’s best player Demarai Gray, had been through on goal before he then appeared to be pulled back by a Villa defender only for the referee to wave play on with the goalscoring chance then not taken.
Had Gray gone on and scored from that chance might the outcome of the match been different?
Well, in what then you might say was then a contest defined by two ex-Bayer Leverkusen wingers, the game was taken over by a player the Toffees were constantly linked with for months but didn’t sign; Leon Bailey.
Inevitably Bailey went on to underline the talent that Everton missed out on as he created and then scored Villa’s second and third goals.
That second goal was actually scored by a Blues player as Bailey’s corner was put into his own net by left-back Lucas Digne.
Digne’s own goal underlined the Frenchman’s indifferent contribution to the team last night. In fact, he’s been increasingly periphial figure for quite a while now and his performances have been pertty underwhelming really since about midway through last season.
It seems to me that Digne has been coasting for too long and with Everton having bizarrely in my view sent Niels Nkounkou out on loan this season, there is no obvious threat to his position. It’s an unwelcome additional problem for Rafa Benitez to deal with.
Anyway, having gone behind and given all those injuries the Toffees didn’t have any real options on the bench to turn the game around. Benitez brought on Andre Gomes and Anthony Gordon but Everton never looked like coming back and it finished 3-0.
So, a disappointing but on reflection not too suprising a defeat and now Everton have to regroup and get ready for their next match against a struggling Norwich City at Goodison Park.