Toffees’ low spending is biting now

MONEY is a bit of a tricky subject at Everton these days – so don’t mention Matty Cash.

The Villa full back showed that while Rafa Benitez might be a very good manager, he might not necessarily be

THAT lucky a one.

Because with Everton riding high in the table having spent just pennies in the summer, there are some even wondering whether it might be worth having a cheeky few quid on him taking them to the title.

That was never going to happen but certainly Rafa not splashing the cash in the summer and doing so well was beginning to make him look like the shrewdest operator in town.

Just £1.7million spent on Demarai Gray and Rafa was looking every bit the miracle worker. Until this.

For most of this game it looked like he was going to at least go back to

Merseyside with a point, despite having lost goalkeeper Jordan Pickford on the morning of the game. The England No.1 had to pull out with a shoulder strain.

But just when Rafa needed Lady Luck to smile on him, she left the building.

Pickford wouldn’t have saved Cash’s leftfoot scorcher (above) which ripped into the roof of the net, and within minutes poor Lucas Digne’s own-goal and a Leon Bailey belter horribly exposed Everton.

Pinstripe-suited Rafa slumped in his seat hardly having an answer to what was happening in front of him. Stand-in keeper Asmir Begovic wasn’t to blame. Benitez’s streak of fortune had just finally run out.

In the opposite goal, it was a different story. Normally getting home at 5.30am on the morning of a match would be a surefire way to find yourself blacklisted by an irate manager.

Not so Emiliano Martinez, who was welcomed off an early morning flight from Croatia with open arms.

You see the game’s all about expected goals more than expected time of arrival.

And that’s why the Argentina international goalkeeper was fast-tracked back into the Villa fold having served his 10 days quarantine.

Goalkeepers are THAT important and while quarantine pal Emi Buendia – Villa’s record signing, incidentally – had to settle for a place among the subs, Martinez was brought straight back in.

Midfielders, even £38m midfielders, are 10 a penny, by comparison.