Marcus Rashford celebrates scoring his teams first goal during the Premier League match between Manchester United FC and Everton FC at Old Trafford on December 01, 2024
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown
Back in the summer when their team were bidding for the Everton centre-back’s services, Manchester United fans were dreaming of seeing Jarrad Branthwaite scoring in front of the Stretford End this season, but it wasn’t while still wearing a royal blue jersey.
The supporters’ protest about rising ticket prices, and a lack of concessions, before kick-off showed that even many Old Trafford patrons are already seeing through the parsimonious approach of Jim Ratcliffe – who is even trying to get someone else to foot the billion pound plus bill to rebuild the stadium – to revive their fortunes and sticking in a couple of derisory offers, way short of Goodison Park chiefs’ valuation of their breakthrough star of last season, was not a productive way to try and prise Everton’s prize asset down the East Lancs Road.
While Manchester United’s owners might not appreciate Branthwaite’s true worth, Evertonians certainly do and although the player is understood to be happy with the Blues, whichever way you look at things, this was a huge opportunity for him to impress on the big stage. Indeed, the potentially generational talent looked imperious throughout the first half an hour, making a couple of crucially timed interceptions and building attacks at the other end of the pitch with his ability to drive forward out of defence and pick a pass.
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However, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, and there wasn’t much that looked very magisterial in the rest of Branthwaite’s afternoon from the moment he redirected Marcus Rashford’s shot beyond his own goalkeeper. That was unfortunate in the extreme, but excuses cannot be made for what followed with the harshest of lessons quickly on the horizon as dallying in possession saw him robbed of the ball Amad and United gifted a second goal.
It all went to show that the 22-year-old still has much to learn, even on the back of a 2023/24 campaign that saw him emerge as one of the Premier League most dominant defenders. Branthwaite’s presence will gain Everton far more points that it loses, and they’re fortunate to have him but despite a bright start, this proved to be a very bad day in the office for both him and his colleagues.
Collective guilt
It would be unfair to point the finger of blame entirely in Branthwaite’s direction though as he was just one of several players in the Everton side who wilted on an unseasonably warm first day of advent when the temperatures touched a relatively balmy 15 degrees Celsius in Stretford.
What a difference a year makes, because on a freezing afternoon in the East Midlands when the ground was white, the Blues kicked off last December with a 1-0 victory at Nottingham Forest to secure the first of four consecutive wins that month to bounce back from their then 10-point deduction that had ensured they started the festive period propping up the Premier League table.
Everton aren’t in such a precarious position this time around, but they’re currently on a downwards trajectory. You know the day has not gone well when captain James Tarkowski, who has started every game for the club in the Premier League since signing in the summer of 2022, gets the hook early.
A local lad to these parts and boyhood United fan, Tarkowski, who also played 35 plus Premier League appearances in each of his last four seasons at Burnley, was only denied ‘ever-present’ status by competition bosses last term because he was forced off with injury a minute into second half stoppage time to be replaced by Ben Godfrey in a 2-2 draw at Sheffield United. However, this time around, he made way for Jake O’Brien with a full eight minutes to go after earlier being guilty of a howler for United’s fourth goal.
There have been times this season when Tarkowski has seemingly felt the need to show himself to be the hardest man on the pitch with some eye-watering challenges but here he inexplicably dallied to allow Amad sprint beyond him in a moment of rare hesitancy. It didn’t help that the back pass came from Vitalii Mykolenko either with the left-back being given the run around by the Ivory Coast right winger for much of the afternoon, whether he was stood where he should be, or not as was often the case.
Where now for Dyche?
Former Everton winger Pat Nevin, the ‘thinking man’s’ football pundit was at Old Trafford to witness the Blues’ dramatic collapse up close. The day before, the Scot had been just up the road from Old Trafford, at the BBC’s studio in Salford, to record Football Focus and he spoke about the battle near the bottom of the table to stay in the Premier League.
Nevin said: “I’m slightly concerned with Everton, my old club, because have a look at the fixtures they’ve got between now and Christmas, it could be really, really tough for them, but I agree with Chris Sutton (that the three promoted clubs) are the most likely to go down.”
When Alex Scott asked him whether the Blues had the right man in charge to guide them to survival, the Glaswegian replied: “One hundred percent. Not even ninety-nine-point nine. One hundred percent, Sean Dyche is the right guy there with the limitations that they’ve got on spending, no one is more capable than him in that situation so don’t get rid of Sean.”
Sutton chimed in: “Absolutely, that would be ridiculous.”
Dyche’s assistant Ian Woan tells a humorous tale of when he and ‘the gaffer’ took time out on a holiday to Las Vegas to go and see the Grand Canyon but after just two minutes visiting one of the great natural wonders of the world, the future Everton manager wanted to move on and remarked: “What else have I got to see? I'm just looking at this big hole.”
The problem right now is there seems to be a widening chasm between how many football professionals like Nevin and Sutton view the job Dyche is doing at Everton and how it is viewed by an increasing number of a frustrated fanbase.
The former Burnley boss must be lauded for the great escapes he performed under unprecedented levels of strain at Goodison Park in both 2022/23 and last season, but so far this term, the lack of progression has been painful and it’s to be hoped in this historic final season at ‘The Grand Old Lady’, that Everton are not finding themselves staring towards the abyss of the Championship at the moment they find themselves on the cusp of a brighter future with a takeover by the Friedkin Group and move to a new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.