A curious game for curious times ended with a clear victory for Newcastle United and an unclear picture of what Everton are under Carlo Ancelotti.
Everton could have gone top with a win and added to the sense of excitement around the club ahead of Saturday lunchtime’s visit of Manchester United to Goodison Park. Instead they are just two points ahead of a much-criticised Newcastle.
Ancelotti’s side fell so far short of what a top-four team should be that their sweet quartet of wins at the start of the season could be the distortion, not losing here or at Southampton last Sunday.
There were mitigating factors, no Richarlison or James Rodriguez, but Ancelotti’s verdict – “Until the penalty, the game was played well tactically, we avoided problems” – seemed an odd reading of the near hour before Callum Wilson converted a penalty-kick.
Newcastle are hardly thrill-a-minute, in fact Steve Bruce was again asked last week about his team being “boring”, but they had created more than Everton and could have been 2-0 ahead with more composed finishing from Wilson and Allan Saint-Maximin.
The visitors, though, considering their high position in the table, did not even earn a corner until the half-hour mark and did not have a meaningful shot until the 44th minute. It came from Dominic Calvert-Lewin, unsurprisingly.
But Calvert-Lewin was a peripheral focal point for much of the game. Andre Gomes was an unsupportive attacking presence nearby and could have been substituted well before he lazily kicked Wilson to give Newcastle their penalty. Gylfi Sigurdsson, for such a talented footballer, contributed little until late on. The word vague has been used about this Newcastle side, and it is what Everton were.
The Blues did improve once Bernard replaced Gomes and there was an injury-time rush when Calvert-Lewin stabbed in a cross from Alex Iwobi – the striker’s eighth in the league this season and another one-touch goal.
In the dying seconds after that there was an anxious moment for Karl Darlow, when Bernard’s cross looked to be floating in. But the Newcastle stand-in keeper tipped it over, then claimed the resulting corner confidently. In the Everton dugout, Jordan Pickford presumably cursed.
Pickford had been dropped for the first time for a Premier League game since his transfer from Sunderland in 2017. He is another England goalkeeper under scrutiny. In came the Sweden keeper Robin Olsen for his debut. Olsen is 30 and experienced; he stood his ground.
It was a big decision, one Pickford will not have been pleased with, yet Ancelotti has assured him that he will be back in goal this Saturday. When it was put to Ancelotti that this was another puzzle on an afternoon of them, he replied that he has often rotated keepers and did so at Real Madrid and Napoli. He said Pickford has his “trust” and that the situation is “not complicated for me”.
Real Madrid also came up in connection to Isco and Ancelotti’s apparent desire to sign him. “Isco’s a fantastic player,” he said, adding: “I’m honestly not focused there.”
Further Everton investment would raise eyebrows, but Bruce would be nodding at it approvingly. Wilson’s goals were his fifth and sixth since his £20m arrival from Bournemouth and he has made a difference, given Newcastle an edge where they had been blunt.
“Already he’s value for money,” Bruce said of Wilson. “That was the conversation I had with my chief exec: ‘Can we find someone who’s a stick-on?’”
The lesson of appropriate investment was seen in what was ultimately the winning goal. It was initiated by Jamal Lewis, signed from Norwich, teed up by Ryan Fraser and bundled in by Wilson (both acquired from Bournemouth).
Bruce said, notably, that there is always an element of gambling in signing players from abroad. £40m Joelinton was on the bench and for once went unmentioned. It was a curious day.
Newcastle United (5-3-1-1)
Darlow; Murphy, Schar, Lascelles, Fernandez, Lewis; S. Longstaff, Hendrick, Almiron (Hayden 83); Saint-Maximin (Fraser 74); Wilson (Carroll 87)Subs: Gillespie, Clark, Joelinton, Manquillo
Everton (4-3-2-1)
Olsen; Kenny (Iwobi 77), Mina, Keane, Nkounkou (Tosun 69); Doucoure, Allan, Delph; Sigurdsson, Gomes (Bernard 60); Calvert-LewinSubs: Pickford, Gordon, Branthwaite, Simms
Ref: Stuart Attwell
MoM – Wilson
Match rating – 5
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