Vardy wonder goal piles on the agony for Everton
This was a Gray day for the grey man as Claude Puel achieved his first victory in his first game in charge of Leicester City – and Demarai Gray, making only his second Premier League start of the season, was outstanding as a hapless Everton, in their insipid second kit, were overwhelmed and left in the relegation zone and in a relegation battle.
It was the kind of first half that will inflict serious damage on David Unsworth’s chances of becoming Everton’s next permanent manager with the caretaker due to meet chairman Bill Kenwright – who was at the King Power Stadium – and majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri this week to discuss his future. If he has one.
The former defender – and current Under-23 coach – started here with a naive 4-4-2 formation, with two wingers, three of his back four with a combined age of 100, and watched helplessly as they were then simply ripped apart by the pace of Gray and Jamie Vardy, who received a standing ovation when he was eventually substituted.
Puel’s appointment, as successor to Craig Shakespeare, has divided opinion with his one season at Southampton ending after a League Cup final, an eighth-place finish but also some decidedly toothless, bland, uninspiring football.
The grey-haired Frenchman is also, to put it mildly, hardly the most quotable, media-friendly manager, whispering his bland answers, but there was certainly character and charisma in the team he put out on this occasion, although credit should also go to the assistant he inherited, Michael Appleton, who achieved two wins, in the league and the League Cup, to turn things around.
During that time Everton have lost all three of their matches, going out of the League Cup, and Unsworth, or whoever takes over following Ronald Koeman’s dismissal, has their work cut out in re-energising this team, rebalancing this squad and finding some way forward. Interestingly, only two of the summer signings – goalkeeper Jordan Pickford and Wayne Rooney – started and although Michael Keane was absent because of an infected leg, Davy Klaassen was not in the squad and record £45million signing Gylfi Sigurdsson was benched.
The two goals conceded mean that Everton have won just two of their 10 league matches, letting in 20 goals – the most since 1994-95, when Unsworth was one of their players and Joe Royle, now helping him out with the first-team, came in mid-way through the season to succeed Mike Walker as manager. Royle coined the phrase “dogs of war” during that campaign but while this Everton team had more bite when Unsworth re-jigged his approach at half-time and brought on 19-year-old midfielder Beni Baningime, they did not ever look capable of rescuing this match.
The two-speed approach of the teams was summed up in Leicester’s glorious first goal. Gray, on his first home league start since April 4, and brought in by Puel ahead of Marc Albrighton, latched on to Wilfred Ndidi’s header, as the midfielder cleared a Leighton Baines free-kick from inside the Leicester penalty area and ran.
Gray was deep inside his own half and held off Tom Davies who tried to bring him down, tore past Idrissa Gueye, cut across Rooney – and turned the ball out wide to Riyad Mahrez who crossed low for Vardy to hammer it first time and high into the net. A new era for Leicester – but an old combination and only 17 seconds had elapsed between the free-kick and the thrilling goal. That was devastating, as was, for Everton, Leicester’s sec- ond goal which was somehow credited by the Premier League to Gray but was clearly an own goal by Jonjoe Kenny – the only defender not deep into his 30s – who attempted to intercept a cross into the area by the winger with the ball slicing off his right-boot and flying past a stranded Pickford. It was, therefore, only Gray’s second league goal in 51 matches.
Everton, wearing their light grey away kit, were simply off-colour, again, but should have been given an unlikely route back into the match when Aaron Lennon burst into the area and was rashly brought down by Christian Fuchs. It appeared a penalty but referee Andre Marriner, to the fury of Rooney, who became increasingly agitated as the game went on, waved play on.
Maybe, if a penalty had been given, that might have changed things although Leicester will point to chances they missed during that first 45 minutes – while Everton struggled to have any impact bar a speculative shot from Kevin Mirallas which was easily turned away by goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.
The wingers – Lennon and Mirallas – went off at half-time but although Everton were far more purposeful, winning the ball back time and again, there was no edge, no creativity, no threat.
And so it ended. Leicester are up and running, and up to 11th in the table with Puel while Everton’s season has stalled, again. Unsworth will take them for the Europa League tie away to Lyon and then the home league game next Sunday against Watford before the international break. Everton may want to keep Unsworth in charge after that but may be forced to make another change.