The groundhog day of away matches results continues as Everton travelled down to London today and were beaten 2-1 by West Ham United.
Is anyone surprised by this? I doubt it and right on script once again Everton went away from home and will return with nothing leaving them still staring right over the precipice of relegation.
And, yet again to rub salt into the wounds, the Blues’ had a player sent off as Micheal Keane collected a second yellow card and will now be facing a ban alongside Allan who was sent off in the Toffees’ last game against Newcastle.
Alongside another two goals conceded and a loss, it’s no surprise that everything else consistently goes wrong to contribute to Everton’s troubles with stonewall penalties denied and players being sent off, although today Keane can have little real complaint.
Frank Lampard had picked a team without Anthony Gordon in the starting eleven, which was a real surprise to me and proably most Evertonians. It was a very perplexing decision given how lively and impressive the youngster has been, especially recently when so few have performed well.
Everton were however arguably the better side in the first forty-five minutes and West Ham were off the pace, looking distracted and frankly not that interested. But nevertheless, the home side had of course taken the lead through an Aaron Cresswell free-kick after half an hour.
Despite going behind yet again on their travels, the Blues’ did respond with a decent start to the second period and equalised through Mason Holgate who had come into midfield for Donny van de Beek, a very late injury in the warm up before kick-off.
He joined both right-backs were unavailable with Seamus Coleman and Nathan Patterson apparently hurt. Once again as we’ve said time and again this club never gets any luck with injuries.
That goal gave the travelling support some slender hope that finally this team might be able to find a way to get at least a point from an away trip and one that their performance probably deserved after so many heavy and hugely depressing defeats.
Of course, Everton as always, contrived to throw that chance away with West Ham managing to restore their lead just five minutes later.
It is so infuriating the way this side seems to exhibit every single fault that could cost them points and failing to see out the first five or ten minutes after you have scored is yet another of them.
Having gone behind again Keane had his latest moment of unforced supidity, which then almost certainly consigned the Toffees’ to yet another defeat as you couldn’t see this team recovering a second time.
You can argue that Everton deserved at least a point from the match but as always individual errors and mistakes continue to hurt this team even when they put in a decent shift. It sometimes feels as if there is some sort of curse on this side the way everything goes wrong.
It’s also getting to a point where you don’t think this side will ever win another game away from Goodison Park, for the rest of time!
The next game is of course another away trip to Burnley, the preverbial ‘six’ or even ‘nine pointer’. It will probably be a season-defining match. Lose that one and I think all bets are surely off for Everton and relegation.