Davies equaliser is a sickener for Southampton
When Tom Davies took aim with four minutes of injury-time played and Southampton down to 10 men it would be fair to say that it felt like one of those pivotal moments in the season of the away team: hold out and they may survive relegation, concede and anything was possible.
Davies’ shot clipped the defender Wesley Hoedt, wrong-footed Alex McCarthy and when it hit the net, Mark Hughes sunk back into his chair with his head in his hands. Thirty seconds earlier his team were on the brink of a second consecutive league victory that would have taken them to 16th and would have made survival a certainty with a win at Swansea City on Tuesday night.
The game at the Liberty Stadium and its significance has not changed for Hughes, and his team may yet stay in the Premier League, but in that final moment of a dismal Everton display, Davies’ deflected goal robbed Southampton of their recent momentum.
This was not a classic by any means, played out against a backdrop of gradually increasing resentment from the home fans towards Sam Allardyce, but it was Southampton’s to win.
Hughes turned his anger on the referee Jonathan Moss, chiefly for his award of a free-kick against goalscorer Nathan Redmond in the moments before Saints conceded the equaliser but also for a second yellow card dished out to Maya Yoshida on 85 minutes.
“It happens too often,” he said. “You worry about the referees being strong enough about playing a direct part in getting key decisions correct. You shouldn’t have to worry, they should be the best and they are not.”
He complained that when the freekick had been awarded Moss was “Thirty yards behind play as he usually is”. When he was asked whether he had spoken to Moss about the incident the reply was as cutting as he could manage: “What’s the point? He’s probably still getting his breath back.”
The equaliser meant that West Bromwich Albion, who beat Tottenham Hotspur, live to fight another day, with Stoke City having been relegated.
For Saints it remains all about the game at Swansea before a final home game against Manchester City – and they will face that without the suspended Yoshida and possibly midfielder Mario Lemina, who came off injured at half-time.
For Everton it was a dreadful game which saw their manager bombarded with chants of “f--- off Sam Allardyce” and the stadium all but empty before the post-match lap of appreciation to mark the final home game of the season.
When the players did eventually reappear, there was no sign of their manager, who later claimed that his interview commitments had prevented him from coming out.
Allardyce said that there was no credit given to his players for avoiding relegation or for snatching a point when they had played poorly. “I thought we were terrible,” he said. “I thought we couldn’t pass to each other. I don’t know why they had that problem but you have to forgive these boys and the fans should forgive them for how hard they have worked to get the club out of trouble.
“There seems to be no credit for the achievement. I’m talking about them and the effort they have put in to stay in the top half of the league and accumulate more points than some of our rivals who are supposed to be better than us. There appears to be no credit, which is a shame for the effort they have put in. They have done a magnificent job.”
Before the equaliser a second half goal for substitute Redmond was the difference on a day of largely terrible football between two desperate teams who have lost their way badly this season. At least Saints had the stomach for the fight, and so nearly held on to the end until they fell back one too many times with Everton piling on the pressure.
As for Everton, there were proposed protests when disaffected supporters were invited to turn their backs on the pitch to indicate their displeasure at the style of football, the running of the club and anything else they could think of, all of which passed without much note.
In the first half, Lemina looked exhausted for much of the game and seemed to have picked up a game-ending injury around 43 minutes, but after treatment he soldiered on before departing at half-time. Allardyce had switched a back three at half-time. It gave no extra edge and it was 66 minutes before Idrissa Gueye crossed a ball that could loosely be described as a chance for Cenk Tosun.
Southampton’s goal came down the right, where Cedric Soares overlapped and picked out Redmond at the back post, where he met the ball well with his head, guiding it down and through the legs of Jordan Pickford.
With 10 minutes left Allardyce made the unusual decision to send on his forgotten Dutch midfielder Davy Klaassen, bought under the previous regime and utterly ignored under the current. Before this late cameo he had played just six minutes of first-team football since the turn of the year. Moments before the equaliser McCarthy had tipped Leighton Baines’s free-kick over the bar and the Southampton players celebrated as if they had seen off the last attack, but that was still to come.
Everton (4-1-4-1) Pickford; Coleman, Jagielka (Klaassen 80), Keane, Baines; Schneiderlin; Bolasie (Funes Mori 45), Davies, Gueye; Vlasic (Niasse 58), Tosun. Subs Robles (g), Martina, Kenny, Baningime. Booked Schneiderlin. Southampton (3-5-2) McCarthy; Bednarek, Yoshida, Hoedt; Soares, Romeu, Hojbjerg, Lemina (Redmond 45), Bertrand; Austin (Long 76), Tadic (Ward-Prowse 70). Subs Forster (g), Stephens, Gabbiadini, McQueen. Booked Austin, Yoshida, Hoedt, Romeu. Sent off Yoshida. Referee Jonathan Moss (West Yorkshire).