Brilliant football pullout inside!
Silva under pressure as Vardy strike gives Toffees more home misery
NEW YEAR, same Everton.
Marco Silva’s arrival in the summer was supposed to bring with it a revolution. But the Toffees started 2019 needing to make a few resolutions.
Top of the list is to start winning at home again.
Jamie Vardy’s secondhalf strike for Leicester ensured this was the fourth Premier League game in a row without a win at Goodison for Silva’s side.
The last time that happened was towards the end of Roberto Martinez’s reign in 2016.
And the home crowd made their feelings known with boos at the end after they were treated to a very early contender for the worst game of the year, having shrugged off New Year’s
Eve hangovers to get to the lunchtime kick-off.
Festive football can be fantastic but the fourth game in 10 days for Everton, and fourth in 11 for Leicester, delivered an awful match despite £300million worth of talent on show.
But City headed home happy as they overcame their surprise defeat by Cardiff to add the Toffees to wins over Chelsea and Manchester City in their last four games.
Foxes manager Claude Puel is somehow one of the bookies’ favourites to be the next Premier League boss to face the axe despite his side sitting seventh in the table.
But the focus will be on Silva if Everton don’t improve, as the Blues carried their woeful form into the New Year with just one win in eight games.
It is a horror run which started when Liverpool striker Divock Origi scored a 96th-minute winner in the Merseyside derby in early December.
More worrying for the Portuguese manager is that Everton sit on 27 points after 21 games – the exact same tally they were on at this stage last season.
That was under Sam Allardyce, who was not seen as a long-term manager at the club. Silva is supposed to be the man to take the Toffees forward but there is a serious lack of progression.
“I am not here to compare,” said the Everton boss (below). “I am concerned with the result we didn’t achieve and not about the points we have now and last season.
“We look at the points at the end of the season.”
They have, at times, played some exciting football, which is an improvement, but this was not one of those days.
It was quiet inside Goodison and the action on the pitch matched it in a terrible opening 45 minutes.
Jonjoe Kenny, a surprise starter ahead of Seamus Coleman, did come close to a spectacular opener when he cracked against the woodwork.
Leicester were the better of the two teams but they were hardly at their best with passes constantly going astray.
But a mistake from defender Michael Keane, who failed to deal with Theo Walcott nodding down a Kasper Schmeichel punt, allowed Ricardo Pereira to slip Vardy in.
The striker didn’t have a sniff in the previous 58 minutes but was clinical as he beat Toffees keeper Jordan Pickford with a low strike before a somersault celebration.
Silva turned to Bernard and the ineffective Cenk Tosun, but there would be no equaliser for the hosts.
Everton didn’t deserve one, either, and now the Toffees boss must turn their form around or 2019 will be another year to forget for the blue half of Merseyside.