Jack Grealish’s goal gave Everton a first Premier League win at Bournemouth.Photograph: Ian Walton/Reuters
Another game to show off the concertinaed qualities of this season’s Premier League. If anyone can beat anyone, they can also play out landlocked contests like this. It took a deflection to win it, Jack Grealish’s shot smashing off Bafodé Diakité’s shins and into the corner. Two clubs from the mid-table blob that stretches from seventh to 15th fought and ran hard, effort never in short supply. The same could not be said of quality, entertainment and chance creation.
For Bournemouth winless in November, losing from a two-goal winning position at Sunderland was a low point in a season that began with high promise. Such concerns continued, the former flavour of the month is fading. Inconsistencies that denied the team European qualification last season have returned. Everton followers might sympathise, last Monday’s Old Trafford win followed by disaster against Newcastle. Winning at a stadium where they had never won a Premier League game after being the better team in the second half sets them up far better for the festive grind that awaits both teams.
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Everton’s thin squad, soon to be without Idrissa Gana Gueye and Iliman Ndiaye for AfCon duty, were missing the former from midfield through suspension, and Michael Keane from defence. With Jake O’Brien moved to centre-back, James Garner was emergency right-back.
In this season of set-piece dominance, fielding the maverick tendencies of Charly Alcaraz alongside Grealish, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Ndiaye, evidenced David Moyes’ return to School of Science values, Everton’s manager always proudly anti-fashion. With Alex Scott pulling strings in Bournemouth’s midfield, the promise of a football contest rather than modish rugby-esque fare.
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It represented no guarantee of excitement. A turgid first half followed. And Everton’s first glimpse of goal still came from Vitaliy Mykolenko’s long throw. The visitors dominated possession early on, Bournemouth unusually passive. Andoni Iraola had made four changes from Sunderland, and his unfamiliar team’s first chance also came from a set piece, Antoine Semenyo forcing a save from Jordan Pickford.
A chilly evening air, the Vitality strangely devoid of crowd noise, was filled with the sounds of Iraola and Moyes’s exhortations; Alcaraz in particular had his manager on his case, the Argentinian asked to chase every last cause. Semenyo, on the left, with Adrien Truffert overlapping beyond him, pushed at the perceived weakness of Garner to little avail while Grealish drifted centrally in search of involvement.
Everton’s most sustained danger came from a series of corners, the ball twice rebounding from a post amid six-yard box melees. All very messy and Garner’s hoik into the Dorset skies was fully in keeping with a half that ended Junior Kroupi being ruled offside when he had the ball in the net.
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The set-piece salvos continued beyond the break. Everton’s Thierno Barry, barrelling through, never quite in control, was sent away to notch his first shot on target of the season; it was still unconvincing. If Everton seemed likelier, they continued to be scrappy, with Grealish, his form lately slumped, struggling to recreate his inspirational early appearances. Barry’s wild thrash of a Garner pass into the car park was met with affectionate cheers from away fans who appreciate the striker’s endeavour if not his precision.
Iraola had removed the ineffective Kroupi and Amine Adli, for senior replacements in Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier and a measure of improvement resulted, with Veljko Milosavljevic, the teenage defensive tower, nodding over.
The contest at long last opening up granted Everton their chance to counter. Grealish, after Alcaraz had followed his manager’s instructions to hunt down loose balls, was aiming for the opposite post and Djordje Petrovic was left helpless, fine margins and fortune seizing the three points.