When Jeremy Doku scored in the 43rd minute of Monday's match between Everton and Manchester City at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, it feels very likely that every Evertonian felt their head's drop.
The game had to be over.
This Everton side, playing at home, hasn't been very good in its first season on the Bramley-Moore dock. This City side, chasing the title, had been pushing and pushing for the goal and finally found it at the death of the first half.
Everton had been resolute up to that point, taking jabs from the visitors, but fending off any real chances for City to take the lead. And then Doku smashed a screamer into the top left corner of Jordan Pickford's goal, giving the visitors a 1-0 lead.
The hosts probably didn't have a chance to come back from that one. They'd had just 24% of the possession in the first half and zero shots on target. David Moyes' squad would need to open itself up to find an equalizer, which would probably lead to even more City goals.
And then, Theiro Barry came on in the 64th minute for Beto, a swap that Moyes has made almost every match in one direction or another. But this time, it unlocked something. Or maybe it was just fortuitous timing.
City defender Marc Guehi made a terrible back pass that Barry pounced on and smashed it past Gianluigi Donnaruma in the goal. It was just Everton's third shot on goal, and suddenly the Blues had found their equalizer. Game on.
Five minutes later they took the lead via a Jake O'Brien header off a corner from James Garner, giving the home side a sudden and unexpected lead. And they wouldn't have to wait long -- just eight minutes -- before Barry bagged his brace off another City mistake, this time by substitute Mateo Kovacic.
City answered just two minutes later from none other than Erling Haaland, and the Hill Dickinson, previously flying from the euphoria of a two-goal cushion, grew tense again.
And then two things happened that have now happened in three sucessive matches for Everton.
The first is that the Toffees were denied a penalty even though it was clear to almost everyone that they should have been given one. Bernardo Silva took Merlin Rohl down in the box with a rugby tackle, but Michael Oliver, in his infinite wisdom, ignored it, and VAR didn't see the clear and obvious error, spouting some nonsense about the contact happening before the corner was taken.
That, of course, led to City having the chance to stay in the match, as the previous incident took place in the 87th minute, and a 4-2 lead at that point would have served Everton well.
The second is that Everton again conceded in stoppage time, for the third straight match. Having already curled in with his left foot, Doku did the same thing on the opposite side, as Everton players didn't step in to stop him.
And while this didn't cause them to lose the match as it did against Liverpool and West Ham, it now makes four points dropped over that three-week span. Four vital points in Everton's race for Europe, one that would have been deeply enhanced by a shocking win over City on Monday.
A draw against a team fighting for the league title, even at home, is not the worst outcome. But given how things were shaking out in the final 10-15 minutes, it's a match Everton should have won.
The hope will be that those dropped points won't end up being the difference, but seeing as we're discussing Everton, there's almost no way they won't matter in the end.
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