Before I get on to Everton’s lacklustre preparation for the Merseyside derby in midweek I first wish to write a couple of paragraphs about my visit to my old local non-league team from when I was living in London.
Wealdstone are the team in question and they are currently enjoying time in the highest league they have ever played in, the National League. They have reached the top division of non-league and forgotten what non-league football is meant to be about. It’s meant to be about going with your family to enjoy seeing your local team fight against the odds. Most of all its about the joy of watching a game in a chilled environment and being a place where people can catch a love of the game.
That used to be present at Wealdstone, from the helpful stewards to the great food and a stadium where you could have fun and always be behind the goal where your team was shooting. This is no more, there are locked gates stopping home fans from getting to the far end of the ground which is where the main burger bar is. This means that the home fans have no access to decent food whilst the away fans can eat delicious burgers to their hearts content. To treat the home fans worse than the away fans is a trick I hope no other clubs ever learn from, you should treat all fans just as well as each other and give the highest possible standard of service possible. This combined with the rudeness of the stewards and the low quality of football on display from both The Stones and their visitors Stockport led to me leaving at halftime. I haven’t done that at a match for a long time, but I’ve always had a reason to stay before. I did miss 4 goals in the second half though so I may stay at games in future, no matter how bad they’ve been so far.
Rant over, now back to Everton’s preparation for the Merseyside derby. They went down to London to take on my team newly promoted Brentford, who stopped the rot by getting a point at St. James’ Park last weekend. Liverpool drew 3-3 on their visit to the Bees, so Everton would have been hoping for at least the same amount of points from their visit. No such luck for the Toffees though, despite the brilliant manager in their dugout.
I only had a ticket to this one thanks to my uncle who is a season ticket holder for the Bees and knowing how much I would want to go to this game he offered me a spare ticket he had. It took me all of 2 minutes consideration before I took him up on the offer and it came with a lift to and from the match too, which certainly beats public transport.
I am now used to the Brentford Community stadium and whilst I’ll never forget the great experiences I had at games at Griffin Park this new stadium is now undeniably Brentford’s home. Unfortunately many other fans are now used to it too which meant that the queue for the decent food at ‘The Griffin’ kiosk was longer than ever before and this combined with a later than my usual arrival at the ground meant that I was trying to take down starting 11’s and substitutes as the teams walked out. Fighting to hear the announcer above the roar of both sets of fans was a challenge, but I managed to get the starting 11’s down just fine. I had to wait till halftime when I could read the screens out on the concourse to sort out each teams subs bench though.
Going into the game only 2 points separated the teams, they had both lost the same amount of games and scored the same amount of goals this season. These facts give a clearer indication that anything else of each teams fan’s state of mind going into this one. Particularly that of the Everton fans who would expect to be far ahead of the newly promoted teams by this time of the season. They would certainly expect to be far ahead of a team that has taken only one point from their past five games, a run of form that left Brentford 4 points above the relegation zone going into this one.
The knee was taken before kick-off, as is now traditional at football, by all the players except Ivan Toney. I do not know why he has chosen not to take the knee but it is his decision to make so I will not judge him for it. The traditions all accounted for the match got underway.
Despite what both teams had to gain from a decent performance and a successful result they both started this one content to let the opposition have the ball in midfield and only start competing for the ball in their own defensive third. This was infuriating for me as a fan who wanted to see his team going for it at home and I’m sure it was just as infuriating for the travelling fans who were looking for a fighting performance to set them up for the derby.
This extremely relaxed opening to the match was brought to an abrupt end in the 20th minute when a Brentford corner the ball bounced up on the edge of the area. Onyeka went to head it down to get it under control, whilst Townsend went to hack it clear and in doing so his boot made contact with Onyeka’s head. Onyeka collapsed to the turf, but the ref saw this and decided to wave play on as Everton went on the break. It was the clearest penalty you will ever see at a football match and even if the ref didn’t think it was there was still the head injury to Onyeka to consider. The fact that the ref didn’t stop the game is one of the most shameful decisions I have ever seen at a football match and the booing of him by the home fans was completely justified at that point. Stopping the match for a head injury is one of the simplest rules of football, so for the ref to not even do that was baffling.
Thankfully at this point VAR intervened and the ref got a word in his ear to go to the screen. On second viewing the ref realised his error and gave the penalty he should’ve given first time. It was strange not to see a read card for Townsend given how high his boot was when he made contact with Onkeya’s head. I understand that it was unintentional, but surely it still counts as dangerous play to make contact with your opponent’s head.
Either way it was certainly a penalty and 4 minutes after the original incident Toney stepped up to send Pickford the wrong way and stroke the ball into the bottom left hand corner of the net. The unbridled joy of the home fans to finally be leading at home again was incredible to be part of and I will remember that moment for the rest of my life.
Going ahead seemed to spark Brentford into life as they put the Everton goal under siege for the rest of the half, restricting their visitors to a few half chances in the rest of the half. Everton only kept the score at 1-0 to their hosts thanks to the efforts of Jordan Pickford between the sticks for them. First, in the 26th minute, he smothered a promising cross across the 6 yard box from the Brentford right, then a minute late his save at the feet of a Bees attacker was the only thing stopping a simple tap-in second for the hosts. Pickford continued these heroics in the next minute of the match when he positioned himself just right to save Pinnock’s goal bound header.
Everton did get a couple of breaks before half time as mentioned, though they didn’t look like scoring on any of them. The frustration of being completely shut out seemed to get to the visitors as in the 30th minute there was a flying tackle that came in on Fernandez in the Bees goal as he cleared the ball. No contact was made on this occasion but if there had been it would almost certainly have resulted in an injury to the Bees stopper, it was a real leg breaker of a challenge.
It was around this time in the half that Brentford got so comfortable with their dominance of the match that they took to messing around with the ball at the back. It looked as though they were almost willing themselves to make a mistake that would give Everton a decent opening to fashion a chance. When this failed to happen the hosts went back on the attack.
In the 42nd minute it looked like Brentford would double their lead when the ball found Bryan Mbuemo in acres of space just 15 yards out, but his first-time shot lacked any power at all and the ball trickled harmlessly into Pickford’s arms. This was a glorious chance to get the second goal, but I’m sure Mbuemo will be back to scoring again soon. This was not the last chance of the half for the hosts though as they got in again down the right in the penultimate minute of the first half only for the cross to be punched away from the top of Toney’s head by Jordan Pickford.
Pickford really was Everton’s Man of the half, not that the competition was particularly stiff for this honour though. Their first half was truly summed up by an incident in the 2 minutes of added time at the end of the half. The ball was headed towards goal from the edge of the box by an Everton player from 9 yards only for the ball to head straight into his teammate, the block was exquisite, and away from danger. This was a half where Everton had no ideas on how to create chances at all.
Given this complete lack of cutting edge and ideas respectively I was amazed that neither manager made any changes at half time and so it seemed where the away fans. They were even more amazed when Brentford were the ones straight on the attack from kick off. The hosts had a corner in the first minute of this new half that landed at the feet of Sergi Canos on the edge of the box, but he could only send his shot sailing over the bar. It seemed neither team had managed to find what they needed at half time.
Everton’s frustration levels continued to increase as the match continued and this showed in their play and the conduct of their players. In the 52nd minute Digne went down without any visible contact from where I was, but he stayed down long enough for Brentford to put the ball out of play as a show of sportsmanship to allow Digne to receive treatment. This infuriated the home fans as Brentford had been on the attack at the time. This anger in the home fans was increased ten-fold when Digne was able to continue as if nothing had happened after minimal treatment. One Brentford had put the ball out to allow him to receive treatment he turned to the ref and gestured for a card to be given to the player he thought was responsible for him ending up on the turf. The home fans saw this as cynical gamesmanship from Digne and vented their anger at him by booing his every touch for the rest of the match.
This incident left a disgusting taste in the mouth of every home fan and this was only made worse in the 63rd minute when Rico Henry went down after being hit by the ball in the extra attachment as Ethan Pinnock attempted to launch the ball into the box. Having put the ball out for Digne’s injury the hosts were expecting their visitors to return the favour now one of their players was in distress. Everton decided not to do so and instead members of their team were urging their teammates to take full advantage of their extra man advantage.
When this attack was brought to an end by a splendid covering tackle by Jansson on Digne the Bees’ defender couldn’t resist having a word in Digne’s ear about the difference in each teams approach to an injured opponent. This lit a spark on the tinder box of frustration that had been simmering away all half. The resulting confrontation was little more than handbags, but it was still the most exciting thing to happen all half. The ref gave yellow cards to Jansson and Rondon for their parts in the fracas and then told both teams to get on with the match. This was by far the best call the ref made all match.
Unfortunately this spark failed to ignite the match as the play on the field remained cautious and defensive. Everton were finally seeing the majority of possession, but they were doing so little with it that the game lost any feeling of a contest as it seemed both teams were settling for the result as it was. Brentford were content to sit in, let Everton have the ball and then deal with whatever their visitors could throw at them. This was not much at all as Everton only had two presentable chances all half despite their possession.
The first of these was in the 55th minute when the ball fell to Salomon Rondon on the edge of the box and he rifled in a powerful shot towards goal, only for it to be blocked and bounce clear of danger. Rondon fell to the ground with his head in his hands at this point, the frustration and despair written all over his face. Everton’s second chance came a little closer as Alex Iwobi managed to pinch the ball off a Bees defender in the box and poke the ball through a forest of legs towards goal. His shot was more of a toe poke than anything else though and it lacked any power so it was simple for Fernandez to scoop up.
This was the last real chance that Everton were able to fashion as the game fizzled out in the last half hour with neither side attacking with any pace or intent behind their play. Even the managers seemed to be settling for the 1-0 score line and whilst I understand this from Thomas Frank’s perspective it is far harder to decipher why Benitez would have thought of the game this way. Benitez only made one substitution all game when he bought on Demarai Gray for Andros Townsend. This is pretty much a like for like substitution with no change in the defensive nature of his team’s play. His options from the bench were not incredible though with his best two players, Richarlison and Calver-Lewin, unavailable for this match through suspension and injury respectively.
The match ended 1-0 to Brentford as they won at home for the first time since their 2-0 opening day win against Arsenal. The home fans will hope this signals a turning around of their fortunes as they head into the packed Christmas period. The visiting fans were full of something far less positive than hope as their players approached them after the final whistle. The Everton fans let their anger at what was a dreadful performance loose on the players, they gave them hell and left then in absolutely no doubt of their feelings.
I hope for the players sake that this provokes a response in the derby tonight cause otherwise I have no doubt they will receive more of the same at the final whistle. Everton head into the derby having failed to win in 7 matches and just 5 points above the relegation zone. In contrast their opponents Liverpool go into the derby on the back of some truly impressive form. They have only lost 1 match all season and have averaged 3 goals per match over the same period. The gulf in form between the two teams could not be much wider if they were doing it on purpose, but as all fans know form counts for nothing on derby day.
This derby is also a meeting of 2 legendary Liverpool managers who find themselves in opposite dugouts tonight and looks like it will take a miracle of Istanbul proportions for Everton to get anything out of the game tonight. Luckily for them they have in their dugout the man who delivered that unforgettable night for Liverpool’s fans 16 years ago. Unfortunately for Benitez a failure to deliver a similar miracle for Everton tonight may be the last nail in his coffin at Everton, given the reaction the fans had to the result at Brentford and how little love they had for him before this anyway. All I can say to Benitez on that miracle front is good luck, cause he’s seriously going to need it.
I was unable to get a ticket for the derby so my blog next week will come instead from the biggest city in Yorkshire as I visit Leeds United and their historic stadium of Elland Road.
The Football tourist 