JACK RUES BAD LUCK
JACK HARRISON bemoaned Everton’s bad luck after Seamus Coleman’s own goal.
Toffees winger Harrison said: “As a team we are always trying to create our own luck but we have been a bit unfortunate and today there were parts of the game we need to improve on. We need to do that moving forward and stay positive.
“It’s tough for Seamus. He puts his heart and soul into this team and gives everything. It is always a difficult thing but Seamus is a great captain and great leader. He will bounce back.
“We just have to find a way to win.
“Our performances have been good but it’s getting the results which are vital for us.”
Cherries boss Andoni Iraola said: “We played the game we had to play. It is always difficult against Everton.
“I thought we were quite smart not to make mistakes and we had the clear chances. We deserved to win. One mistake for them, one mistake for us.”
SEAMUS COLEMAN left Everton still mired in relegation trouble with the kind of own goal that suggests their season is cursed.
The Toffees skipper chested the ball past a horrified Jordan Pickford in injury time, just four minutes after Sean Dyche must have felt his team had salvaged a priceless point.
Everton substitute Beto had spooked Neto, Bournemouth’s keeper, into dropping the ball on a plate for the striker to score an unlikely 87th-minute equaliser.
But just when it appeared as if the Toffees would not be stuck fast to a position two places above the drop zone, Coleman dithered over dealing with a cross from Adam Smith.
The ball struck the Irishman in the midriff and squirmed past Pickford.
Bournemouth had taken a second-half lead when Dominic Solanke provided the kind of ruthless instinct Everton can no longer muster and it all added up to an increase in the agony for Dyche. Jaw clenched tight and eyes fixed hard on the grey-shirted ineffectiveness ahead of him, the Everton manager watched his team lose a third successive Premier League match.
Managers talk a lot these days about “controlling the controllables” but Dyche’s issue is that the two large elephants in the dressing room – the threat of another points deduction and the stalled takeover – are crushing the life out of his players.
The danger is that unless they can quickly find some breathing space, they will be pushed out of the trapdoor that is relegation.
They created some half-chances for Dominic Calvert-lewin, but they wear the haunted look of a team that has now gone 12 matches without a win in the league –
equalling their worst previous run of 1994. The Cherries were not at their best, but they were too savvy for Everton and in Solanke they have a genuine striker of high quality.
After a sticky start, Calvert-lewin twice went close to scoring – the first effort blocked as he tried to swivel in the goalmouth before his next strike was parried away for a corner.
Cherries’ Lewis Cook blasted a rebound over the bar early on after Antoine Semenyo’s shot was saved by Jordan Pickford.
Semenyo then hit the post just before the break and in between times it was a firsthalf of not much drama, but a lot of dross.
BOURNEMOUTH: Neto 7; Smith 6, Mepham 6, Zabarnyi 7, Kerkez 6 (Kelly (63) 7); Adams 6, Cook 7; Semenyo 7, Kluivert 6 (Billing (74) 6), Tavernier 7 (Ouattara (74) 6); Solanke 8 (Unal (85) 6)
EVERTON: Pickford 7; Coleman 6, Tarkowski 6, Branthwaite 6, Godfrey 6; Harrison 6 (Young (72) 6), Onana 7 (Beto (79) 6), Doucoure 6 (Gomes (72) 6), Garner 7, Mcneil 6; Calvert-lewin 6
STAR MAN: Dominic Solanke - Works hard, links play smoothly.
REF: Sam Barrott 7