Last Sunday, Tottenham Hotspur followed Everton as the second Premier League ever-present to go into the final day of the season with their top flight status on the line.
Unfortunately, the Blues never really made their hosts sweat for the victory that would guarantee safety at West Ham United’s expense with David Moyes’ men not having a shot on target until substitute Tyrique George tested Antonin Kinsky in the 99th minute. However, it was rather different three years ago today on May 28, 2023, when their own survival was at stake.
For the third time in their history but the first occasion in 25 years after near-misses in 1994 and 1998, Everton went into the final day of a Premier League season fighting for survival yet still managed to complete a hat-trick of ‘Great Escapes.’ Ultimately the Blues would record what was the club’s lowest equivalent points total in 135 years of Football League and then Premier League action but unlike those previous late ‘Houdini Acts’ when the team had also been playing at Goodison Park on both occasions, their fate was at least in their own hands.
Despite steering the Blues to safety in their final home game of the previous campaign and having the prospect of climbing to ninth if they’d beaten Leicester City at Goodison on Bonfire Night, the team went into the unprecedented seven-week mid-season break for the first ever Northern Hemisphere winter World Cup finals in Qatar on the back of a hat-trick of major reversals. A 2-0 defeat to the Foxes saw Brendan Rodgers’ side climb out of the drop zone and leapfrog them in the table while manager Frank Lampard then made an unprecedented 11 changes for a Carabao Cup tie at Bournemouth with a 4-1 loss being followed by a 3-0 beating in the Premier League back at the Vitality Stadium just four days later.
The downwards spiral continued after Everton returned to action by being beaten 2-1 by bottom club Wolverhampton Wanderers on Boxing Day. Having lost eight of his last nine games in all competitions, Lampard was axed following a 2-0 defeat at West Ham United on January 21 – the club where he started his career and where his namesake father was a legend – with majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri having turned up at the London Stadium to watch his first Blues match since the 5-2 capitulation at home to Watford under Rafael Benitez, 15 months earlier.
With the team joint bottom of the Premier League, Sean Dyche, who had previously been in charge of Burnley for almost a decade – having a pub named after him in the East Lancashire town after he guided the Clarets into European football for the first time since the 1966/67 season – took the reins and started with a 1-0 win over table-topping Arsenal at Goodison Park.
Although a second consecutive home win against Leeds United saw Everton climb out of the relegation zone a fortnight later, they yo-yoed in and out of the bottom three and were back down there in the final month before a sensational 5-1 victory at Brighton & Hove Albion on May 8 shook things up and provided a platform towards safety.
The Blues knew that if they beat Bournemouth on the final day then there was nothing their rivals could do but they went into the fixture without a recognised striker as winger Demarai Gray spearheaded the attack, while with no available full-backs, midfielder James Garner and winger Dwight McNeil were forced to play as wing-backs in front of a back three.
Leeds United, who fell behind after just two minutes in a 4-1 home loss to Tottenham Hotspur were on the back foot all day but with Leicester City 1-0 up at home to West Ham United from the 34th minute in a game they’d win 2-1, Everton were heading for a first relegation in 72 years until Abdoulaye Doucoure lashed in a half volley from the ‘D’ outside the area in front of the Park End on 57 minutes.
Joe Thomas of the ECHO wrote: “It was a goal that came from nothing but meant everything. And how fitting that it came from Abdoulaye Doucoure, the player Sean Dyche brought in from the cold to inspire a team bereft of confidence and goals.
“Doucoure now has five of them, along with two assists, meaning the 30-year-old has contributed to more than one-fifth of Everton’s goals this season in the 15 matches he has played since Dyche arrived with him training away from the first team (the player had been frozen out in Lampard’s final days after a dispute).
“It was the goal that saved Everton and it sparked celebrations so loud inside Goodison Park they could be heard on the other side of the River Mersey. A flurry of fireworks added to the cacophony.
“It was just as fitting that the goal was inspired by a fanbase that somehow roused itself for one final battle dance after two seasons in which Everton’s supporters have proved more effective than anything this club has been able to muster on the pitch.”