Awful first half cost Everton precious points in 2-1 Wolves loss

Another dreadful 45 minutes cost Everton what would have been a precious point and maybe three as the team slipped to a third straight defeat tonight at Molineux.

It was an abject first half display that was right out of the worst archive of Everton performances we have seen again and again. The team was gutless and lacking urgency and focus.

It is hard to believe those footballers could put in such a terrible lacklustre effort for an entire half following the disasterous Watford defeat last weekend. There was a desperate need for a reaction but to be honest as we all probably expected, it didn’t come.

I really do despair sometimes that this football club can ever be turned around, but I know that right after another poor effort and a loss is not perhaps the time for the most objective and dispassionate analysis.

However, it just feels again like that constant groundhog day I’ve described before of tentative hopes for another fresh start at the beginning of a new campaign and a few green shoots quickly fading as the relentlessly depressing reality begins to sink in once again.

It’s almost like a nightmare that you can’t wake up from as one season seems to merge into the next with an almost robotic regularity.

Just like last season once more after a misleadingly bright start, we’re back to utterly mediocre performances, sloppy defending and hugely frustrating defeats.

At the moment I can’t see anything other than another mediocre mid-table finish at best and if this collection of players keep on repeating performances like that first half display tonight, even that seems a forlorn hope. Maybe the club should just fold and be done with it.

Well, ok that might sound like a bit too extreme and negative but it’s really hard not to get caught up in a massively downward spiral when you support this team.

Anyway, I suppose we have to look at the game itself. Rafa Benitez picked a team playing in a 4-4-2 with Demarai Gray supporting Richarlison up front.

The manager decided to play Alex Iwobi again instead of Anthony Gordon on the left – why as when he came on he was the away team’s best player showing energy and determination?

And Jean-Philippe Gbamin came into the middle alongside Allan. He looked very rusty and lacking in confidence, which I suppose isn’t that surprising.

I wanted to see a 4-3-3 with three in midfield and Gbamin having the support of two others, Allan and either Tom Davies, Andre Gomes or maybe sicknote Fabian Delph who to be fair also had a decent match.

Once again Lucas Digne was out before the match meaning that Ben Godfrey slotted in at left-back. He was dreadful again actually effectively providing an assist for Raul Jiminez, and his form has just nose-dived.

Critically, it was important that the side Benitez picked be hard to beat and try to get something after those two previous matches, even if it meant just sitting back and getting ten men behind the ball at times. And they weren’t.

While the Toffees have been creating much more this season, and that’s been good to see, they were too open tonight and again overun in midfield. It’s horses for courses and after that terrible afternoon against Watford, to come away with something was the key tonight.

Wolves ran rings around Everton in that first half had the ball in the net which was disallowed and were well deserving of their two goal halftime lead as again pathetic defending at set-plays cost the away team.

It drives you crazy watching these professionals make the same basic errors again and again and again, match after match.

After the break the performance was improved, but that just makes you even more fed up because we can’t these players put in a shift for a full ninety minutes?!

Delph replaced Gbamin and instantly gave the midfield more urgency and determination and with that better grip the Toffees offered more offensive threat too.

And after a shot from Godfrey rebounded to him Iwobi, who did little else again, fired it home to give the travelling fans the illusion of a comeback.

But of course, they couldn’t find an equaliser and Wolves could and should have got a third as well as having a shout for a penalty which was overturned by VAR.

So, there it is another depressing defeat and now Everton face a Spurs side at Goodison Park who might well have a new manager Antonio Conte in charge.

After all this recent misery the atmosphere at the Grand Old Lady next weekend could be pretty toxic too and at this stage another defeat seems unthinkable.