Moyes adds to Toffees turmoil
Dyche dismayed by wasted chances as his winless run reaches 10 games
IF Everton thought their luck was beginning to change after success with their points appeal, this was a cruel setback.
Rarely can have they played this well under Sean Dyche but still felt the pain of defeat after two sucker punches from West Ham in injury time — the first of which was a strike of beauty from the outside of Tomas Soucek’s right boot. Before then, Alphonse Areola had made nine saves in the West Ham goal including a penalty stop from Beto.
Even winning manager David Moyes, returning to his former club, said: ‘The result was harsh on Everton. I told our goalkeeper he made the difference. His performance was terrific.’
Dyche was more inclined to blame the wastefulness of his own players. ‘How we are not scoring more is bizarre,’ he said. ‘We created chances again and didn’t win. It can’t keep going on. You have to score more than once when you are doing the sort of work we did. I am very frustrated’.
This defeat extends Everton’s winless run to 10 matches. Though they have been handed back four of the 10 points originally docked for financial rule breaches, they are still uncomfortably close to the relegation zone.
For West Ham, a sticky patch that brought criticism for Moyes is in the rear mirror for now.
Four goals against Brentford last Monday and another three at Goodison mean they can face Freiburg in the Europa League on Thursday with confidence. They already have more league points this season than they totalled last year.
Beto’s misses were the story of a goalless first half. He fired at Areola when played through oneon-one and then hit a tame penalty awarded after a VAR check for handball against Kurt Zouma.
To his credit, he did not let the disappointment affect him. After 56 minutes when James Garner swung in a cross, he rose brilliantly between two defenders to power home a header for the opening goal.
The home side should have been out of sight with Dwight McNeil twice foiled by Areola’s athleticism. ‘He has a great natural spring,’ said Moyes afterwards.
They paid the price with West Ham’s leveller after 62 minutes. Set piece specialist James Ward-Prowse curled a corner into the danger area where Zouma got the important connection.
The Hammers skipper played 36 times for Everton in 2018/19 on loan from Chelsea and tried to keep his celebrations more muted than his team-mates.
Areola made an outstanding leap to divert Beto’s deflected shot that was spinning crazily towards the corner.
The Portuguese forward was withdrawn after 75 minutes with fatigue but it was a similar story for his replacement, Dominic Calvert-Lewin whose low finish from eight yards was also thwarted by the keeper.
The final few minutes were ridiculously open by Premier League standards and in the end, it was Everton who cracked.
Mohammed Kudus’s cross from the left was met with a brilliant connection by Soucek. The ball rocketed into the top corner giving Jordan Pickford no chance. Soucek was not bothered he got booked in the celebrations.
The pass by Jarrod Bowen for Edson Alvarez to make it 3-1 was the final salt in the wound for the home side.
‘A wee bit of a throwback,’ said Moyes. ‘We’ve had a difficult period but we are still hanging in there.’
Dyche seems to have run out of ideas to get his team to score more. Calvert-Lewin is on a run of 20 without a goal but the manager does not want to heap all the pressure on his forwards.
‘Anyone is allowed to score,’ he said. ‘We controlled the game at 1-0. If we’d scored the second, it would have been a long way back for Everton. We needed to kill it off, no excuses.’