JOKE FIGURE HAS THE LAST LAUGH
Niasse goes from zero to unlikely hero
T WAS an hour after the final whistle when, in the lounge adjacent to Goodison Park’s media room, a huge roar went up.
The reason for the clamour soon became apparent when the chanting started: ‘Oumar! Oumar!’ This, genuinely, was a scene nobody could have envisaged. Oumar Niasse had not played for Everton in the Premier League since May 2016 and, but for a wrangle about agents’ fees, his career on Merseyside would have ended on deadline day last month.
Niasse was the £13.5million signing from Lokomotiv Moscow who had been derided by fans, jettisoned by Ronald Koeman and harshly described by some as the worst player to pull on a Royal Blue shirt.
Yet, having entered Saturday’s game as a 54th-minute substitute, he left the pitch to acclaim, his double strike against Bournemouth lifting the pressure on Koeman. ‘I just kept fighting,’ said Niasse, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Hull.
‘I had to believe and give my best. The coach gave me a chance and I had to take it with both hands.’
Koeman tried to rewrite history after the game. Everton’s manager insisted he ‘never had a problem’ with Niasse and that stories of the player not having a first-team locker at the training ground were untrue.
But Niasse has been so far out of the picture that his locker remains in the Under 23s’ dressing room and Koeman left him out of Everton’s Europa League squad. On Saturday, Niasse did not travel to Goodison in a club suit because he has not been given one.
‘All credit to Oumar,’ said Koeman, whose side recorded their first Premier League win since the opening day of the season. ‘A lot of the attention is on the two goals but his whole performance and attitude are what we need at this difficult time.’
Whether this is the start of a permanent revival for player and team remains to be seen. Koeman’s determination to play Wayne Rooney, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Davy Klaassen is holding Everton back. Sigurdsson and Klaassen — total cost £70m — were anonymous, while Rooney left the pitch with blood gushing from an eye after a first-half collision with Simon Francis.
A better team than Bournemouth would have put Everton to the sword and it was plain to see how demoralised manager Eddie Howe was at three points squandered after his side had taken the lead through Josh King. He said: ‘We didn’t look troubled but the first goal was a massive moment.’
For Bournemouth, for Koeman and, most of all, for Niasse. SUPER STAT: Oumar Niasse scored as many PL goals in five minutes as Everton had managed all season. EVERTON (4-2-3-1): Pickford 7.5; Martina 5 (Kenny 76min, 7), Holgate 7, Williams 6, Baines 7; Schneiderlin 5, Gueye 5; Rooney 6 (NIASSE 54, 8), Klaassen 4 (Davies 54, 7), Sigurdsson 6: CalvertLewin 7. Subs not used: Stekelenburg, Ramirez, Vlasic, Lookman. Scorers: Niasse 77, 82. Booked: Davies, Schneiderlin, Niasse. Manager: Ronald Koeman 7. AFC BOURNEMOUTH (4-4-2): Begovic 6; A Smith 7, Francis 6, Ake 6 (Mousset 83), Daniels 7; Ibe 5, Gosling 6, Surman 6, Stanislas 5; King 7 (S Cook 79), Defoe 6 (Afobe 75). Subs not used: Ramsdale, Pugh, L Cook, Fraser. Scorer: King 49. Booked: Stanislas. Manager: Eddie Howe 5. Referee: Martin Atkinson 6. Attendance: 38,133.