Everton hosted Wolves at home this evening, and looked to be off to a good start in the first half. The Toffees didn't technically have more possession than the visitors (it was a 49/51 split in favor of Wolves), but the home side looked in control of the match.
That dominance was hammered home when Michael Keane hit an excellent goal on a muffed cross from Tim Iroegbunam, putting Everton ahead 1-0 just 17 minutes into the match.
Keane nearly doubled his tally in the 30th minute, as his head off a free kick hit off the bar, but the home side continued to push through an impressive midfield showing from Iroegbunam, Harrison Armstrong (making his first-ever Premier League start), and James Garner, with Jack Grealish making a nuisance of himself on the left side.
And so the Toffees went into halftime with the 1-0 lead intact, but it looked for all the world that they'd be favored to add to the deficit once the second half began.
All those people have apparently never seen Everton play football, however.
It was a slow start to the second interval, as Jordan Pickford was forced into his first save of the night within the first minute, and then a head injury to Wolves' centerback Ladislav Krejci slowed proceedings down even further while the player was tended to.
From there, Wolves took control of the match, looking more confident as the game went on. And then, Everton switched off in the 69th minute, and teenager Mateus Mane cut through the Toffees' defense, baiting James Tarkowski into stepping up and then streaking past the Everton defender. Mane slipped the shot past Pickford, equalizing for Wolves.
And then things really got out of hand.
Everton were searching for a second goal, although they couldn't find much, as the air around Hill Dickinson Stadium certainly changed after Wolves got their goal.
And then, in the midst of a seemingly innocuous stretch of play, VAR officials told referee Thomas Kirk to stop play, as they were looking at a previous incident. Keane has risen above Wolves' striker Tollu Arokodare for a header, but as the pair came down from the air, Keane caught a hold of the striker's hair. Gravity being what it is, there was a tug.
Minutes later, Kirk issued a straight red card due to so-called "violent conduct," and Everton were down to 10 men with seven minutes to play. In the stir around the clearly problematic red card, David Moyes was booked for coming out of his technical area, while Grealish also received a yellow for, presumably, dissent.
Wolves kept pushing, and Everton now had their ears pinned back, trying to defend for the point. And then, in the 90th minute, Kirk booked Grealish again for what he must have felt was a sarcastic clap at the referees' expense, leaving the Toffees with just 9 men to finish off the nine minutes of stoppage time.
The visitors nearly stole all three points in stoppage time, as Pickford made a huge save on Santiago Bueno's effort in the 93rd minute, and, thankfully, the match ended without further incident six minutes later.
The refereeing was shambolic, yes, but Everton didn't help themselves any favors with their second-half performance. The goal wasn't terribly earned from Wolves, and Moyes needed to be more direct against the team sitting at the bottom of the Premier League table, who just won their first match of the season last weekend.
Worse yet, Everton's already thin squad is even more so, and Saturday's FA Cup match at home against Sunderland feels like an early exit from the competition waiting to happen as a result.