Crystal Palace 0 Everton 0: Blues draw away from home once more

Yesterday Everton came away from Selhurst Park with a point after a dull and disappointing 0-0 draw against Crystal Palace.

It was another deadlock on their travels and although a point is obviously better than none at all, three points were what was really needed.

Everton have a truly dreadful record away from home and haven’t won on the road since October last year. That winless run continues after yesterday’s game.

The Toffees’ have though been unbeaten on their travels recently after picking up points at Nottingham Forest and Chelsea.

But, although those points might potentially be useful in the end, what they desperately need are wins to pull away from the relegation battle.

That is especially so given that several of the Toffees’ rivals got results – with Leicester’s win at Wolves particularly costy – that helped them, pushing the Blues’ back into the drop zone.

Yesterday, Everton had their best striker, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, back fit and healthy and as I predicted, manager Sean Dyche picked him from the start against Palace.

Calvert-Lewin had several chances to reward his manager with a goal but couldn’t take them, perhaps if he had been fully match-fit he might have done so.

There were a few other opportunites as well for the visitors to score but as has so often been the case all season long, the Toffees’ couldn’t convert them.

In truth, they were perhaps fortunate not to lose as Palace had the ball in the net before the goal was ruled out by VAR.

Palace were there for the taking on Saturday and yet Everton lacked the guile and quality to take advantage and secure that badly needed away victory.

Now, it is impossible to imagine anything other than the Blues’ taking all the points when they host in-form Newcastle United on Thursday evening while Southampton are also playing.

That will be a very tough task indeed and it is crucial that Calvert-Lewin is at his best as without winning games there is no way this team will stay up.