Everton 4 - 0 Wolves
Everton responded to their walloping at Old Trafford on Sunday with a 4-0 victory of their own, seizing the moment in a must-win game to comfortably beat fellow strugglers Wolves under the lights at Goodison Park.
All four goals came from set-pieces, the first from the boot of Ashley Young who became the oldest player of the Premier League era to score direct from a free-kick, while Orel Mangala notched his first for the Club and Craig Dawson unwittingly put two past his own goalkeeper.
The Blues had the ball in the next six times in all on the night but two goals were chalked off following review by Video Assistant Referee, Darren England, the first a hugely controversial call confirmed by the on-field referee, Michael Salisbury which would have made it 2-0 with just a quarter of an hour gone.
Sean Dyche’s men, already ahead thanks to Young, weathered some brief spells of pressure applied by the visitors to eventually double their lead before half-time and added two more after the break to record their biggest home win under the current manager.
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Dyche was rewarded for two positive changes to the team that saw Mangala rightly restored in the middle alongside Idrissa Gueye while Abdoulaye Doucouré returned to the role behind the striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin who was restored to the team in place of Beto.
Everton badly needed to win what was already a relegation six-pointer against the side starting the evening in 18th place but it was Wolves who made the more positive start.
Rayan Aït-Nouri stole in behind Young in only the second minute but Jorgen Strand Larsen failed to convert in front of goal while Jordan Pickford had to be alert to make a fine one-handed stop to deny the lively Matheus Cunha after the hosts had failed to clear their lines.
Everton’s best moment of the contest thus far, in the ninth minute, led to the opening goal and it was thanks to the referee’s decision to play the advantage to Doucouré and then pull the play back for a free-kick when the Frenchman had strayed offside and ballooned his shot into the Park End.
Dwight McNeil joined Young over the ball but it was the 39-year-old who took responsibility for the kick, sweeping a low drive wide of José Sá’s despairing drive to give Everton a precious lead.
Dawson’s foul on Calvert-Lewin near the right-hand touchline gave McNeil the chance to curl a free-kick deep into the box and James Tarkowski emerged all smiles when he rose above three Wolves players to head home what he thought was the Toffees’ second of the night. Unfortunately, though, Mangala was adjudged by the officials to have obstructed the run of Mario Lamina from an offside position and a free-kick was awarded to Gary O’Neil’s side instead.
The game swung back and forth for a period as Sá came off his line to block Calvert-Lewin’s shot after McNeil had put him in down the channel and Young flashed a teasing ball across the face of goal at one end while Strand Larsen muscled his way past Tarkowski but was denied by Pickford and then couldn’t adjust his body in time to make proper contact on Matt Doherty’s dangerous volleyed centre.
Another McNeil free-kick wide on the right led to the second legitimate goal, however. His initial delivery was headed out only as far as Vitalii Mykolenko whose miscued first-time shot ricocheted out invitingly to Mangala who waved off a team-mate before burying a deflected shot from the edge of the box.
McNeil almost set the seal on a good first half from the Everton perspective when his left-foot drive was glanced just wide of the target by Lamina and Tarkowski could only plant a header from the resulting corner into the keeper’s arms.
Pleasingly, rather than buckle at the start of the second half as they had against United, the Blues not only held Wolves at bay from two early corners, they padded their lead less than four minutes after the restart.
Aït-Nouri was forced to nod a deep McNeil cross behind for a corner and as Calvert-Lewin and Dawson contested the whipped dead-ball delivery at the back post, it came off the defender and bounced into the goal to make it 3-0.
Nothing ever feels safe where Everton are involved even with a three-goal cushion but, to their credit, they never looked likely to let it slip, even when Doherty met Joao Gomes’s cross and headed off the post and Young had to fly across to prevent Cunha from rapping in the loose ball.
Instead, after Calvert-Lewin’s ambitious volley from the angle had missed the target and Iliman Ndiaye’s goal was called back for DCL’s foul on Sa, the Toffees made it 4-0 and should have run away with it even further in the closing stages.
Gomes’s foul on Ndiaye handed another set-piece opportunity to McNeil and this time his wickedly bending free-kick appeared to have been glanced home by the merest of touches by Calvert-Lewin but replays would confirm that the unfortunate Dawson had got the decisive touch with an out-stretched leg to steer it in off the post.
Ndiaye saw a shot deflected behind after a lovely piece of footwork and turn of pace had left his marker for dead and on his debut, Armando Broja might have had an assist were it not for horrendous finishing from Jack Harrison.
The two substitutes were involved in the 87th minute when Broja, displaying some pleasing movement and running off the last man, held the ball up long enough to feed Jesper Lindstrøm and he teed up Harrison but he skied a right-foot effort from an inviting position.
Then, after more excellent work by Broja ended with him centring an early ball for Harrison, the winger sent it back into orbit with another dreadful shot, this time with his preferred left foot.
While Wolves had their moments, particularly when they were on top in the early stages, they were poor overall, even though crucial interventions by Pickford ensured that Everton became only the second team this season after Arsenal to prevent O’Neil’s men from scoring.
None of the goals truly came from open play but Dyche won’t care a jot as he picks up three huge points that opens up an important five-point gap to the bottom three ahead of four successive matches against the current top four in the Premier League.
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