Dyche happy to win ‘ugly’
Calvert-Lewin stops rot but it’s woe for Kompany Everton 1 Burnley Calvert-Lewin 45+2 0
BURNLEY were always good for Sean Dyche and they continue to be so. Just when Everton’s manager needed help to end a famine, how appropriate his old club came bearing gifts.
The bare facts tell you Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s goal in first-half added time gave Everton their first league win in 112 days — their last, on December 16, was at Burnley — but there was so much more to it.
Without some kamikaze defending from Vincent Kompany’s side, it is debatable whether this contest would have ended with noisy relief ringing around Goodison Park.
Burnley, not for the first time in a campaign that appears destined to end in relegation, shot themselves in the foot.
A catastrophic error by goalkeeper Arijanet Muric, which allowed Calvert-Lewin to close him down and score, had Kompany rocking back in disbelief. Worse would follow when Dara O’Shea was sent off for a clumsy foul.
‘Our momentum collapsed twice with matters of our own doing,’ Kompany said.
None of this, of course, will matter to Dyche. He simply had to secure three points and the importance of it all should not be lost. This has to be the catalyst for more, with the spectre of relegation still stalking. But, heavens, it was attritional.
You can argue that needs must but seeing Jordan Pickford roll a ball out of his area before smashing it 60 yards forward for a knock-down or watching Andre Gomes, once of Barcelona, crack a diagonal free-kick to the back post, jarred.
‘We looked at the idea of how well we had played this season,’ said Dyche. ‘We’d not won, so we deliberately tried to play it long and strong and play the game as awkward and ugly as possible and get an ugly win and it worked.’
Dyche may have had his tongue in cheek as he offered that summation but the difference in styles between the sides was stark. Burnley, with better quality in key areas, should have taken advantage of Everton’s shortcomings long before Muric’s error.
Kompany is evangelical in his determination to play out from the back but the standard and the experience of the personnel mean they are always only one mistake from it all collapsing and, 10 seconds before the interval, it did.
Muric dithered, looking to play a straight pass from the edge of his area into midfield, and that allowed Calvert-Lewin to block the kick. Time stood still as the ball looped in the air but an explosion of noise greeted it dropping into the net.
A blank first half would almost certainly have led to booing but Calvert-Lewin, with one outstretched right leg, changed the atmosphere and, in all likelihood, changed the direction of the campaign. With a buffer, Everton got on top and their task was made easier when O’Shea got his feet in a tangle and flattened Dwight McNeil. It was 50 yards from goal but McNeil would have been clear and referee Michael Oliver had no choice.
‘Things have been tough for us,’ said Dyche. ‘There has been a cloud hanging over this club for two or three years. It hard to try and change the story. But we will keep going.’
EVERTON (4-4-1-1): Pickford; Coleman, Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Mykolenko; Young (Harrison 83), Garner, Andre Gomes, McNeil; Doucoure; Calvert Lewin (Beto 83).
Booked: Gomes, Tarkowski.
BURNLEY (4-4-2) Muric; Assignon (Rodriguez 84), O’Shea, Esteve, Taylor (Amdouni 84); Foster, Cullen, Berge, Brunn Larsen (Brownhill 69);Odobert, Fofana (Vitinho 61). Booked: Berge.
Sent off: O’Shea.
Attendance: 39,125.
Referee: Michael Oliver.