Man Utd 4 - 0 Everton
Everton suffered another humiliating collapse at the home of one of the so-called “Sky Six” as they went down 4-0 to Manchester United in Ruben Amorim’s first home Premier match in charge of the Red Devils.
One managerial tenure continued its honeymoon while another seemingly entered its death throes as the Portuguese’s charges rendered the Blues’ positive start to the contest meaningless when they capitalised on their ineptitude at one end of the field to open the scoring at the other in the 34th minute, before running away with it with the help of embarrassing errors by both of Sean Dyche’s chosen centre-halves.
Both Jarrad Branthwaite and James Tarkowski gave up the ball in a vulnerable position in separate incidents in either half while an unforgivably lethargic start to the second half by Everton ensured that the result was set in stone less than 30 seconds after the interval.
Dyche had spent the week since last Saturday’s dismal goalless draw against Brentford talking up his team’s improved defensive record over the past the previous eight games, insisting that they just needed to find the right solution at the top end of the pitch.
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His answer today was to hand a rare start to Beto and in a somewhat encouraging opening overall, the striker came close to scoring after 20 minutes when he was slipped in behind the defence by Dwight McNeil to round Andre Onana but then find the angle had worked against him and he could only drive into the side-netting.
Prior to that, both sides had had their moments, with Kobbie Mainoo stinging Jordan Pickford’s palms and Branthwaite forced to steam across his six-yard box to clear ahead of Diego Dalot while McNeil had wasted a really promising situation following his own interception of Leandro Martinez’s pass by simply running into a blind alley and the slippery Iliman Ndiaye had failed to find Beto with a cut-back from the byline.
Meanwhile Beto miscued wildly with a left-footed attempt, Mainoo skewed a shot in the other box off target and Pickford was fortunate not to be punished for going walkabout outside his area after Vitalii Mykolenko had mis-judged Noussair Mazraoui’s ball down the flank.
The floodgates opened, however, when Everton left Marcus Rashford completely unmarked on the edge of the penalty area as they defended a corner that had come just seconds after Ashley Young’s dreadful cross had invited the hosts to break away on the counter-attack.
The set-piece was swept to the England forward in oceans of space and though Pickford had a chance of reaching his placed volley as it searched out the far post, Branthwaite stuck out a leg and diverted it into his own net to make it 1-0 to Amorim’s men.
United, who had been tentative and disjointed to that point, seized the game by the scruff of the neck and doubled their advantage in the 41st minute. Branthwaite dithered on the ball near the touchline in his own half and was dispossessed by Amad Diallo who found Bruno Fernandes with a pass and Joshua Zirkzee confidently dispatched his low ball past Pickford.
Everton kicked off the second half but gave the ball away immediately, Zirkzee playing a clever ball around the corner for Diallo who set up Rashford to drill a shot between the keeper and his near post to make it 3-0 and confirm that it very much was game over.
Jesper Lindstrom drove a couple of disappointing direct free-kicks into the defensive wall as Everton searched for a crumb of hope before their misery was completed by Tarkowski allowing Diallo to rob him of the ball in a virtual carbon copy of Branthwaite’s howler and Zirkzee tucked home United’s fourth.
Nathan Patterson, Orel Mangala and Jake O’Brien were thrown on to get some minutes along with Dominic Calvert-Lewin and the Scot fashioned two chances for the striker that went begging in the closing stages but there would be no consolation for a Dyche outfit that lost 6-0 at Chelsea at the back end of last season, 4-0 to Spurs early in this one and has now failed to score in four successive games.
It leaves Everton at a dangerously low ebb heading into a crucial home clash with Wolves on Wednesday and Dyche surely clinging to his job as the club await the ratification of The Friedkin Group's takeover which is expected to come this month.
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