Moments missed from Everton's 1-1 draw with Accrington Stanley in their first pre-season friendly
Everton began the preparations for their historic first post-Goodison Park campaign at the Hill Dickinson Stadium with their first pre-season friendly against Accrington Stanley. The Blues drew 1-1 as substitute Beto’s penalty cancelled out Ben Ward’s headed opener for the League Two side early in the second half.
And here ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley takes a look at some of the potential moments missed from the match at the Wham Stadium.
Starting with Beto, the King of the kids...
Beto finds himself a man in demand, and not just with potential transfer suitors, but with young supporters it seems.
Following his £25.8m move from Udinese in August 2023, most of his first 18 months on Merseyside were spent in a bit part role under Sean Dyche and by his own admission – speaking after the 2-1 win at Crystal Palace on February 15 when he’d opening the scoring amid a five goals in four Premier League games purple patch – departing Goodison Park in the January window had been a distinct possibility for him.
Having battled for minutes here and there and being understudy to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, fate decreed that the Guinea-Bissau international soon found himself as returning manager David Moyes’ only available senior striker and having hit double figures last term – doubling his tally from his debut campaign on these shores – Beto could still have a significant role to play for Everton going forward, even with the club splashing out £27m last week to bring in Villarreal striker Thierno Barry as their first new face of the summer.
While Barry isn’t expected to meet up with his new team-mates until next week’s trip to the USA because of his participation with France in the recent UEFA European Under-21 Championship, Beto is not taking the challenge lying down.
Fresh from his pumped-up showing during the one-on-one battles at Everton’s Scottish training camp, the 27-year-old, who is reportedly a target for newly-promoted Leeds United, also cut a determined figure in Lancashire.
Named among the substitutes, Beto was one of three replacements who entered the fray at the start of the second half for the visitors. But he was out of the tunnel and warming up and raring to go, before any of his colleagues or opponents.
It was then his emphatically despatched penalty that earned a share of the spoils and avoided a potentially embarrassing defeat for the Premier League side.
But on a night when travelling Everton supporters outnumbered their hosts, even before he took to the pitch, Beto was garnering attention.
There are also admirers this side of the Pennines as when the away team's substitutes warmed up in the latter stages of the first half, in front of the John Smith’s Stand, a gaggle of enthusiastic young fans chased Beto down the touchline, calling his name and asking for autographs or selfies.
Although he acknowledged them and is a player who always has a lot of time for supporters, feeding off their passion, he gestured that he had a job to do and couldn’t stop on this occasion, although after the final whistle he duly went over to hand his shirt to a junior Blue.
Jarrad who?
With Everton having rejected a brace of bids from Manchester United for Jarrad Branthwaite last summer that were way below their valuation of their prize asset, the centre-back committed his future to the Blues earlier this month with a new contract that ties him down until 2030. And in what was his first game since penning the deal, the 23-year-old had the honour of leading Everton out on the pitch against Accrington Stanley as captain.
Although Seamus Coleman remains club captain, Branthwaite’s centre-back colleague James Tarkowski, currently working his way back to fitness after a hamstring injury ended his sequence of 109 consecutive Premier League appearances, doesn’t need to wear an armband to be an on-field leader, so perhaps we might see Moyes handing the role to ‘The Carlisle Kaiser’ on more occasions going forwards?
The Scot has a terrific track record of developing defenders for the England team having brought in the likes of Joleon Lescott, Phil Jagielka and Leighton Baines first time around, so even Thomas Tuchel might find out who Branthwaite is in the near future.
At the Wham Stadium though there were shades of Old Trafford – not just with the leaky roof that almost destroyed this correspondent’s laptop as a deluge of water fell onto its keys late in the second half – but with the club’s announcer who inexplicably referred to Everton’s star man as “Braithwaite,” a faux pas not heard since Man United’s matchday host made the same mistake on the microphone when the Blues played there in March last year.
Wave of enthusiasm
After several years of strife, on and off the pitch, there’s a long overdue feelgood factor around Everton right now for their loyal but long-suffering supporters. As already mentioned, there were more travelling Blues than Stanley fans at the game and those who had made the relatively short journey from Merseyside were determined to enjoy themselves.
The majority of the away contingent were housed behind one of the goals in the roofless Coppice Terrace, which was open to the elements, and for significant periods the conditions were inclement to say the least – a member of the groundstaff proudly heralded Accrington winning League Two pitch of the year when commenting about how the draining system had withstood such a battering that might have put this fixture at risk of abandonment in the past – but another section of Evertonians in the Eric Whalley Stand were determined to enjoy themselves.
Whether it was Michael Keane or the ‘lino’ being asked to give them a wave, their requests were met with great glee when their targets responded during play.
In contrast, an Accrington follower demanded the players “hit it harder” next time after one of the home side booted the ball out of the ground with a wayward shot.
Numbers game
Starting with their first signing of the summer Charly Alcaraz, Everton had 15 players who wore numbers 24 or above. While some like the aforementioned Branthwaite, who has retained his 32 jersey despite being one of the main men, the high figures reflected the significant amount of youngsters included in Moyes’ matchday squad.
The highest of which was 83 worn by Under-21s player of the year Isaac Heath, who won the penalty to earn the Blues a share of the spoils. However, there was one man wearing a different jersey for the first time and that was Vitalii Mykolenko who played at left-back in the first half.
The 26-year-old had previously worn 19 since his transfer from Dynamo Kyiv in January 2022, but following the exit of out-of-contract Abdoulaye Doucoure this summer, Mykolenko has now taken on the number 16 shirt he sports for Ukraine’s national team.