Moyes delivers Everton another three points as Toffees leave lingering relegation worries behind
Everton had some good fortune along the way at Crystal Palace but this latest win under the returning Moyesiah leaves them free to enjoy the rest of this Goodison Park farewell season in relative peace. That seemed wildly unlikely five weeks ago.
Crystal Palace fans are free to disagree – and vehemently given the genuine absurdity around how so much of this game panned out – but it really is hard not to be drawn in by the sheer good vibes of Everton being back under the watchful eye of David Moyes.
There is a keen sense of everything being right with the world, and the added bonus that Everton’s football in these giddy first few weeks of a love affair rekindled is far, far more watchable than even the very best of his previous Everton teams.
James Tarkowski’s equalising goal against Liverpool in the week is already locked in as one of those that even neutrals will recall and enjoy in the future, and this win over Palace that takes Everton above both Tottenham and Manchester United and pretty much secures Premier League football, so weak has the bottom four now become, was another unexpectedly wild ride.
Palace will have their grumbles, and fair enough. The decision to disallow what they thought was the opening goal because the corner had gone straight out of play didn’t look right at the time or from any of the replays VAR gave a cursory glance.
If anything, it looked to have stayed in fairly comfortably on a series of vaguely unsatisfactory camera angles that were never going to give a compellingly clear answer one way or the other. It meant the on-field decision stood despite it being almost certainly the wrong one.
The speed of the ‘Ah, well, nothing we can do about this’ nature of that decision when set against the painstaking, laborious, decades-long process before Jean-Philippe Mateta’s equaliser early in the second half was allowed to stand was the latest in the growing list of What Actually Are We Doing With Our Game Here?
But while Palace may have a reasonable gripe over that disallowed goal, they must also allow for introspection. This was an avoidable defeat regardless of that setback.
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Everton’s opening goal was the sort of goal that will send fans’ heads to Mars just as much as VAR unpleasantness. First, Palace should have scored barely a minute before Everton eventually did, with a clear chance in front of goal ending with crossbar rattling rather than net rippling.
Even then, there was no apparent danger when Tyrick Mitchell lined up a throw 10 yards inside the Everton half. Ten seconds later, Beto was clipping the ball into the Palace net. The only Palace touch between Mitchell’s throw and the ball being in the back of the net was the slightest of deflections on its way into the back of the net.
It would be an infuriating goal to concede at any time, but doubly so when it’s just before half-time.
Mateta’s equaliser straight after the break also ensured this game did what it always, in fairness, promised and provided a timely response for the Proper Striker Fraternity on a day when Mikel Merino had caused such damage to the brand with his Marouane Fellaini stylings for Arsenal.
Both Mateta and Beto have been in fine recent form and whoever landed on the losing side here was going to have some rueing to do. That, it turned out, would be Mateta’s fate after a gloriously open second half of end-to-end antics ended with Carlos Alcaraz’s first Everton goal proving decisive.
One does have to worry about just how misleading a sense of life at Everton Alcaraz has been given in his first couple of weeks at the club, but as with all else these are worries for another day at a club where long-standing, grinding misery has given way to a surprise new emotion.
Carry on like this, and Everton might even end up in the top half. It doesn’t sound much, but it really is worth reminding oneself of just how big a change that represents.
It’s barely been a month since Moyes returned to Everton, on January 11. Everton then were very much part of the moribund bottom five and just a point above the bottom three.
They had won just three Premier League games out of 19. Four wins from six as well as that thrilling Merseyside Derby farewell for Goodison Park have seen that gap to the bottom three balloon to `13 points.
Such are the travails of the remaining members of that previous bottom-five cluster Everton have now left behind that the Toffees’ current tally of 30 points may already be enough for safety. Unless Leicester and Wolves can find a Moyes of their own, which doesn’t currently appear likely.
Everton fans are now living in a world where the last few months of the season can be enjoyed in relative peace as they say goodbye to one of the great old grounds watching some pleasingly effective and effectively pleasing football. It is a luxury that felt impossible five weeks ago.
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