Everton slump to costly Burnley loss – by Matt Townsend

In another really poor Goodison outing last night, Everton were once again beaten at home by a team in the bottom half of the Premier League. This time it was Burnley who came to the grand old lady, outplayed their hosts and left with all the points.

This has happened so often now this season that it can’t just be considered a temporary blip or purely down to the absence of fans and this season the Blues have lost at home to Leeds, West Ham, Newcastle United, Fulham and now Burnley.

Yesterday’s team was again changed because of injury, this time to Abdoulaye Doucoure. His loss is a huge one as there is no one in the squad who can match his athleticism, energy and box-to-box work. He’s especially important to the team he usually plays on the right side, which is Everton’s weakest, as it was again in last night’s game.

Carlo Ancelotti shifted Tom Davies to the right hand side and I don’t think it worked. Davies has been pretty solid playing in that deep lying defensive role sometimes referred to as the number 6 position but he doesn’t have the pace and workrate to play in Doucoure’s position.

Everton got outfought in midfield and outhought in general by a Burnley team that hadn’t scored more than one goal away from home since an FA Cup tie at Fulham in January.

Last night they were much more attacking than might have been expected and scored twice in the first half. They could have had more as they also hit the woodwork and created several other good chances. Teams realise now that if you can come to Goodison Park and attack the home team you’ll have a good chance of taking all the points.

The Toffees had actually started brightly enough and Richarlison had a good chance that he fluffed but after that the Clarets bossed the first 45 minutes.

They went ahead through Chris Wood who was always a danger and then came a brilliant second through Dwight McNeil who turned past Allan and fired a superb shot past Jordan Pickford.

Everton did respond before halftime and pulled one back through Dominic Calvert-Lewin who headed in a fine Davies cross. But in the second half despite a brief flurry of effort straight after the break, they couldn’t find an equaliser let alone a winner although Calvert-Lewin missed several good opportunities again.

But in truth Burnley deserved to win and they rode out that short storm of Blues pressure well enough and they defended well and held on comfortably to become the seventh team to win at Everton this season.

This defeat was very costly because not only was it three important points lost but also because Chelsea’s draw earlier in the day gave Everton a chance to make up precious ground on their rivals for the top four places.

I don’t think the Blues will make top four or even a Europa League place if they keep on turning in performances like this and the defeats to bottom half clubs listed above have cost the Toffees a huge fifteen points.

I think Ancelotti has a lot of work to do to find out why these players who are so often excellent away from Goodison, just can’t perform at their home ground. He needs to find an answer quickly as Everton still have to play Crystal Palace, Spurs, Aston Villa, Sheffield United and Wolves at home before the season is done.