Everton boss Sean Dyche plays a grim figure when his team comes up with ideas for the first game of the season. Photo: Reuters/Jason Cairnduff Results of the match – Premier League 23/24 – Everton – Fulham
Same Everton? In short, yes. For all the optimism fueled by yet another flight from relegation and manager Sean Dyche's promise in policy notes of a “new start for all of us”, their weaknesses go largely unnoticed.
True freshness remained in short supply. After a heartbreaking day, Everton sank to the sound of mild ridicule. Right now, the season can hardly look longer and more difficult.
The seeds were sown in a summer of transfer numbness, and their astounding problems remain chronic. Of their strikers, Dominic Calvert-Lewin was finishing up rehab, Dwight McNeil was injured, Demarai Gray appeared to be moving to Fulham, and Youssef Chermiti, who arrived last week, is out of shape.
This forced Dyche to use Neil Mope, who hadn't scored since September, as the only striker. If Mope had scored instead of shaved Bernd Leno's goal in the 34th second, things could have turned out well. Instead, when new opportunities fell in front of the isolated Frenchman, the ball bounced off his shin to safety, or Leno repeatedly interfered with him. Mope's withdrawal after a frustrating 72 minutes was an acknowledgment that the experiment had failed, but his replacement, on loan from Villarreal Arnaud Danjuma, did not perform well.
“I want all the players to be in the right places, and he did it,” Deitch said. “If we create enough chances, we will end up scoring goals, but the main thing is you have to keep doing it.”
As Dyche acknowledged, Everton should have won this game. They created plenty of chances in the first half and a few more in the second, but despite Fulham goalkeeper Leno at his best, they came closest when Nathan Patterson hit the bar midway through the second period.
21-year-old Scot Nathan Patterson gave Everton their best chance. Photo: Getty Images/Emma Simpson
Of course, nothing is lost, and there are no hopeless reasons in August. There was an evolution after Dyche's pre-season, which included old-school trips to Wigan, Bolton and Stoke, and there were signs of heightened urgency. The rotation of the midfield around Abdoulaye Doucour, who so rarely fully matches Frank Lampard, makes Burnley Dyche's steely and quick passes the most effective.
But for all Everton's energy, other old folds remain unsmoothed. Behind Mope, James Garner and Alex Iwobi offered only intermittent widths. Fulham were trial strikers, but Everton reeled under pressure. When Fulham's Raul Jiménez hit the post at the same hour, minutes before the arrival of restless striker Aleksandar Mitrovic, who was warmly received by away support, the immediate future was sealed.
Seconds after Maupe's departure Fulham won. when one substitute, Andreas Pereira, fired a low cross, another, Bobby Dekordova-Reid, took the ball home, and Nathan Patterson was out of action.
From now on, Fulham were too disciplined, too cunning and too sure of himself to surrender to his naive masters. , but the winning manager was less laudatory than the losing manager.
Not a good job, Marco Silva frowned. “Everton deserve better but it's a great feeling when you don't play at your level for 95 minutes and win away.”
Lineups – Premier League 23/24 – Everton – Fulham
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