Sunday 15th May 2022, Premier League, Goodison Park, Everton vs Brentford
The weekend had started well for the teams of Merseyside as Liverpool secured their second title of the season on Saturday by winning their first FA Cup under Klopp, defeating Chelsea on penalties under the arch as they had done to win the League Cup.
The early league results on Sunday all went the way Merseyside hoped they would. For the Cup Double winners their weekend was improved further as West Ham United held on to secure a 2-2 home draw against Manchester City to allow Liverpool to take their title challenge to the final day, as long as they beat Southampton on their own turf tonight. City even missed a late penalty that would have won them not just the match, but the title too and now they face Steven Gerrard’s Villa on the final day knowing that a loss to the Liverpool legend’s team will hand the title to the team he carried for so many years.
Results early on Sunday suited Everton too with first Spurs defeating Burnley 1-0 in the lunchtime kick-off, due to a questionable penalty call. Then Leeds could only draw against Brighton. Though the Yorkshire men had been minutes away from losing before a 92nd minute equaliser. These results meant that Lampard’s Toffees knew that winning this match would secure their safety.
Their recent form had put them in this position with a healthy return of 11 points from their last 6 matches, including getting a win and a draw out of their last 2 matches. Both of these were away from home and will have provided the home fans with a ground swell of confidence. Their home form has been excellent all season and this violent upswing in their previously dreadful away form may be just what they need to secure the points to keep them in the Premier League.
For their part the Bees had already secured their own safety with a run of brilliant form coming into this one, ending with a 3-0 home victory over Southampton last weekend. The Bees had only lost once since the start of April, in the Old Trafford abomination that thankfully I was unable to source a ticket for. This awesome run of form was sparked by the 4-1 destruction of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and even with safety now assured it shows no sign of letting up with the momentum behind them.
The visitors also had the fact that Everton had not won 3 successive Sunday league games in their history and that was the record they were hoping to change in this one. Brentford were further motivated by the chance to both avenge their 4-1 FA Cup loss at this ground earlier in the season and secure a league double over their hosts.
Their motivation was more than match by the Everton fans that had arrived early to the ground and crammed into Goodison Road to witness the arrival of the home team coaches like sardines attempting to induce claustrophobia. There was so little room to move by 2:30pm that it made rush hour on the Tube feel like taking a dip in the Siwa Oasis in the deserted Sahara Desert. If Everton do go down it certainly won’t be down to a lack of fan support as the whole of L4 has been galvanised to support their team in the fight of their life.
The support of the passionate Everton fans was a beauty to behold and it was difficult for me not to become carried away in the tide of optimism. Many times I had to stop a home chant from slipping out of my mouth. I managed it but it was close and only the banter from the home fans kept me in the pocket as the only Bee floating in a blue Toffee sea.
There were chants, flares, horns and even an old style rattle sounding as the atmosphere built to a crescendo every couple of minutes only to surpass that one every few minutes till the coach arrived 20 minutes later than the normal 90 minutes before kick-off. In the mean-time I took the opportunity to discuss their team’s predicament with the home fans all around me.
They shared major agreements on many points. Firstly that the recent recruitment by the club had been abysmal, with one fan even going as far as to say that it was “£500million spent on shite”. That may be a little unfair on the team but there was certainly a grain of truth behind the comment that a team who has spent so much shouldn’t be scrambling to avoid relegation with just 7 days left of the season.
Many fans blamed their current plight on what they felt was the doomed appointment of Rafa Benitez as manager last summer, but the counter point was offered that the board should take far more blame than Benitez. They pointed out that even when Benitez was on the brink of being given his marching orders the board allowed Lucas Digne to leave the club due to his strained relationship with the outgoing manager.
The talk then moved on to their run-in and their chances of beating the drop. A very talkative young lady stated that she would be extremely confident of staying up if they were playing Arsenal at home on the final day, but as it’s away she’s not so sure. Another lady standing nearby replied to the question of ‘what if it comes down to the final day against Arsenal?’ with “I really hope it doesn’t come to that”. The anxiety over their away form was palpable and that tension through the crowd makes me worried for their hopes if it comes down to that.
The atmosphere hit the zenith of it’s brilliance as the coach arrived at the players entrance and the road was shrouded in a blanket of blue flares and no-one could actually see the coach till it began to move down the road to clear the stadium and get back on it’s way back to town. This took 15 minutes though despite multiple tannoy announcements to clear the road and the help of 3 police motorbike outriders and 6 police horses. As the coach finally cleared the road the clouds broke so I made my way in through the turnstiles on the Bullens Road side of the stadium like Usain Bolt in his prime.
Once safely inside Goodison I was surprised to find that the screens were not showing the end of the Leeds-Brighton match, the result of which would have a crucial bearing on Everton’s survival hopes. Instead the screens were showing the final 20 minutes of Man City’s visit to the London Stadium and the stewards were glued to it. Perhaps they were secret Red’s but all I know it that they didn’t move till the final whistle was blown and then they used all that saved energy to whizz out of sight at the speed of The Weeping Angels.
I took this as my cue and headed up to my seat on level 2 of the Bullens Road stand in the tiny visitors section of the stadium. Brentford’s league allocation paling in comparison to the full stand they were given for the FA Cup tie. Just the solitary steward and a flimsy fence separated me and the expectant home fans, but our interest was drawn to the players warming up on the pitch as we pretended not to notice each other’s existence.
The programme, picked up as I turned onto Bullens, with it’s glossy back cover was worse than useless when the tannoy whispered each teams starting 11’s into the ether. So I was reduced to noting down the starters numbers onto the miniscule empty space on page 7. This made my note taking extremely difficult and added further credence to my belief that Brentford should run a masterclass, for the rest of the Premier League, on how to produce a proper programme. Not that a decent programme could compensate for the lack of volume on the tannoy, reducing me to reading the numbers for each team off the back of the players shirt as they were presented to the stand on the far side.
Everton started the match firmly on the front foot cheered on by the thunderous home support. With this considerable backing it took the home team just 50 seconds to secure the matches first corner. Granted this could only be sliced acres wide of the left post on the volley from the edge of the box, but it served notice to the visitors that they were in for a match against a team that weren’t going down without a fight.
The hosts heavy metal start to the match saw them come agonisingly close to the opening goal within 180 seconds of kick-off. The gilt-edged chance fell to Anthony Gordon as he was played in to space in the centre of the box and just 8 yards from the target. He shot straight at David Raya and could only watch as the ball bounced towards goal and skimmed a mere whisker wide of the left hand post. Home fans at the far end of the ground broke out in raucous cheers thinking that their team had taken the lead and thus it was cue the glorious ridiculing from the away fans when they finally worked out what had actually happened. The cheers were choked out in their throats.
Brentford where in their full banana away kit, but it took till the 6th minute for them to show their skins. Eriksen slipped a freekick from the right to the near post, where his rising banana teammates dropped the ball onto the roof of the net. Pickford set the hosts on the break that ended with Richarlison sending his effort into the heavens from 10 yards out.
Everton did finally make their early pressure pay though and it came through a mistake they forced in the visitor’s defence. Mads Bech lunged across to cut out Gordon in full flow near the left touchline to give away a cheap as chips free-kick, picking up the game’s first yellow card. The free-kick was slung into the area and Richarlison flapped a leg at it making just enough contact to confuse the visiting defence and direct the ball untouched into the far corner of the net, Mads Bech unable to adjust his legs in time to clear it off the line.
A goal from nothing and Everton had the lead their play warranted with just 10 minutes on the clock. There was no choking out the home fans cheers this time as a wall of noise crashed down onto the pitch. This looked to knock the stuffing out of the Bees players for the next 8 minutes of play as Everton dominated possession without ever looking likely to add to their lead.
It looked like the hosts were just biding their time as they kept the ball and probed for the opening that would allow them to sneak in and double their lead. All this Everton dominance was dealt a Ned Stark style death blow in the 19th minute though as they screamed for a penalty at one end before getting a defender sent off at the other.
Richarlison went down under the close attentions of Kristoffer Ajer in the Brentford penalty area and as the majority of the home players and all the home fans howled for a penalty that never came the visitors broke. The break was rifled upfield tasking Toney to race Jarrad Branthwaite for the loose ball. Toney won the race and in his desperation to prevent Brentford’s talismanic striker taking a shot at goal he scythes the striker down at the ankles. As he tried to protest his innocence, with his teammates alternating between backing him up and pleading for the penalty, the ref reached into his pocket and produced the red card that would change the course of the match.
Branthwaite was judged to be the last defender and thus he had to go. Everton had reached for the win by any means button and brushed the self-destruct button instead. Eriksen could only guide the freekick wide of the left post from the edge of the area, but with the man advantage it now felt like only a matter of time until the visitors drew themselves level.
With the hosts now a man light the match became a training session of attack vs defence as the Bees poured forward at pace at every opportunity and Everton had to resort to their Merseyside Derby tactics in a desperate attempt to cling onto their lead for the next 70 minutes. Pickford led the time-wasting way for the hosts by taking as much time as the ref would allow over every goal-kick for the rest of the half. His team-mates joined the effort in the 27th minute as they clattered into both Toney and Mathias Jensen within seconds of each other in midfield.
This dogged defensive action almost fell to pieces in the 28th minute though as a hopeful ball down the right channel found it’s way to Jensen via a couple of extremely lucky deflection. Under pressure he tried a cheeky chip and though it left Pickford grasping the air it also cleared the bar and was left resting on the roof of the net. The Everton keeper dutifully taking a metric Jurassic era of time to punt the goal-kick as far up the pitch as he can.
Rico Henry created another brilliant chance for Brentford to level the match with a brilliant drive down the right as the match ticked past it’s first half hour. His cut back made it to Christian Norgaard but he sliced his shot across the keeper and it skimmed the paint off the left hand post on it’s way behind for a goal-kick. This time it was my turn to have the cheers choke out in my throat as it looked to me like it had sneaked in for a second. I was up floating above the stadium for a few glorious moments before the cheers in the home stands brought me crashing back to earth.
A minute after that unceremonious rollercoaster my disappointment turned to anger as Richarlison tried to run through 2 Bees players and when that didn’t work he fell to the grass like he’d just been hit by a 747 going full speed. The fact that he was back on his feet after a 30 second physio appointment, but only after Bees had broken up their attack to put the ball out in a show of sportsmanship, did little to lift my mood. Even so I did not join in with the chants of ‘Let him die’ from my fellow Bee’s fans, though I did join the chants of ‘cheat, cheat, cheat’ when they struck up around me.
Brentford broke down Everton’s defensive wall in the 38th minute and smuggled in the equaliser. The immense Eriksen slapped a corner across the box and when it was headed back into the box Yoane Wissa leaped higher than anybody else around him to knock the ball free onto the left hand side. He landed well and drove the ball to the by-line. Then he proceeded to unleash a thunderbolt that flashed past everyone and into the net to tie things up at 1-1.
It looked to me like it had gone straight in off Wissa’s boot but the screen showed a little own goal signal next to Seamus Coleman’s name. I’m sure the Everton captain would be only too happy for it to go down as Wissa’s goal but alas the history books will show it as another tap of the self-destruct button from the hosts.
Fresh from getting the equaliser Brentford almost went ahead with their second goal in 4 minutes when Jensen took the ball all the way to the right-side by-line before whipping a ball across for Rico to connect with at the back post. He connected well on the turn and volleyed it just a hair’s-breadth over the bar. The collective sigh of relief in the home stands mixed with the sigh of disappointment in the away end.
These sighs pushed Brentford on to attack once more as the half ticked into its penultimate minute. Eriksen was at the heart of the visitors efforts once more as he sent a raking 45 yarder upfield to a Toney who was steaming into the box. The resulting header was easy for Pickford to collect, but Toney was back trying his luck within seconds. This time he flashed a lightning bolt across the goal from the right and Pickford had to be at his best, leaping to his right to punch the ball clear of the box.
Then the hosts hit their visitors with a sucker punch to the kidneys in the 3 minutes of injury time tacked on to the end of the half. Launching the ball up into the box Richarlison jumped for it near the penalty spot. When he missed the ball he used the fact that there were two Bees players within 5 yards of him to transform a bad landing into a penalty shout. Going down like he’d taken a roundhouse kick to the face from an MMA fighter. The red bought what was being sold and Everton had a chance to retake the lead from the spot in the dying moments of the half.
Once the penalty had been awarded Richarlison sprung back to his feet like a jack-in-the-box to slide the ball high to Raya’s right, as the keeper dove low to his left, to restore Everton’s one-goal lead. To say that this left the away support apoplectic with rage would be to undersell the point immensely because there were truly no words to describe just how angry certain members of the away support were. The ref did nothing to abate this anger heading into half-time by allowing Everton to continue an attack seconds later when Norgaard was poleaxed in midfield.
The away fans that weren’t cursing the ref or loudly booing Richarlison’s every touch from here on out spent half-time questioning just where VAR was for that penalty shout. I will be one of the Bees fans pondering that question for a very long-time. The best that my conversations with other away fans at half-time could come up with was ‘perhaps it was tea-break time at Stockley Park’.
Thomas Frank spent the break far more productively than that though as he made a substitution to help his team make the breakthrough to draw themselves level once again and hopefully take them to the winning goal. His roll of the dice was to remove Mads Bech from the action and send Vitaly Janelt on in his place. This necessitated a change of formation to 3 at the back and provided Brentford with another extra man in midfield to help them push home their numerical advantage and hopefully provide them with the supply to their forwards that would turn their dominance into the much needed goals.
Aware that they were in for a torrid time in the second half Everton started their timewasting this half before it had even got underway, waiting to emerge from their dressing room until the visiting players had already spent minutes on the pitch and were raring to go. Anxious to make their hosts pay for making them wait Brentford set up camp in the Everton half within seconds of kick-off, though this almost backfired on them when Everton broke out in the 48th minute. The hosts hoofed the ball up field on the left but when the ball was slid through the corridor of uncertainty there was no-one in blue in position to turn it home.
Having survived that scare Brentford got straight back to the task of wearing down the granite wall of home players blocking their route to the equaliser. Jensen floated a cross to the back post where it dropped onto the head of Rico Henry, but he was unable to get any power on the header and it was easily hacked clear. The ball only got as far as the edge of the box though, where it was picked up by Wissa and he let rip with a firecracker of a shot. It took a huge deflection on route to goal but despite this the ref gave the hosts a goal-kick, that Pickford duly wasted as much time as possible in taking.
Timewasting and wrecking play with cynical tackles were the main weapons that the Toffees used to disrupt the build-up of Bees attacks and hold onto the lead. This was doing a brilliant job of transforming me into a giant green rage monster in the away end, but when you need to convert that lead to a win at full-time and you have to play 70 minutes of the match a player light what would you do?
Whatever your approach to that predicament would be the tactics that Lampard’s men had chosen seemed to be working for them as the game limped it’s flowless way towards the hour mark. Brentford’s probing was failing to crack a hole in the granite despite the hosts presenting them with a perfect chance to do so in the 57th minute. Iwobi came in hard on Rico as he advanced on the left and sent him crashing to the ground like a 500 year oak tree being felled for tables. Eriksen curled it to the far post, but Pickford was able to adjust and get himself behind the ball. When he dropped it free in the 6 yard box, giving the self destruct button another tap, none of the attendant Bees players got get the decisive touch and the defence were able to clear it away.
Seeing his team struggle to find a way through the granite Thomas Frank decided to dip into his bench options again on the hour mark and go full send in order to find a way to destroy the granite and grab some goals. He took off central defender Kristoffer Ajer and send on the creative force of attacking midfielder Josh DaSilva in his place. DaSilva’s mercurial creative talent had been crucial to Brentford’s promotion last season, but he had been unable to contribute much to the team this season due to injury.
This substitution did the trick as Everton were unable to cope with the overwhelming attacking force now on display from the visitors. The granite crumbled in the 62nd minute from a very cheap corner that did not need to be given away. Eriksen fed the ball to the near post where Wissa ghosted in to flick it past the flailing arms of Pickford and draw the Bees level. The giant green rage monster inside was vapourised by this and in its place came a level of Euphoria that had yet to be discovered by human kind.
The joy coursing through my veins was so incredibly intoxicating that I was not able to follow the action on the pitch for the next few minutes. In those few minutes Brentford took the lead and the only thing I can recall about this 3rd goal for the Bees was that it came from the head of Rico Henry.
For such a turnaround to take place in front of my eyes was incredible and had the opposite effect in the home stands to the one that it spurred in me. Conceding 2 goals in 120 seconds stunned the home fans into a deathly silence fit only for a morgue or the shock of being told you have a terminal disease and the prognosis awful. The home fans had to deal with the shock of going from leading 2-1 and being on their way to the win that confirms their survival to being 3-2 behind, with their survival hopes being back in the balance in less time than it takes to make a decent cup of tea.
Brentford were now dominating proceedings and looked likely to add the 4th goal that their fans were chanting for, ‘we want 4’, with every attack. It was in this desperate time for the hosts that Lampard was finally convinced to reach for his substitutes and when he did it was for a double. He replaced Andre Gomes with Jonjoe Kenny and then signalled his acceptance that all the hosts could do now was limit the damage by removing their greatest attacking threat, Anthony Gordon, from the fray and bringing on Demarai Gray on to replace him.
Having taken the lead and with the hosts substitutions helping to repair the granite of their defensive wall Thomas Frank made a substitution of his own in the 76th minute. He decided on giving Yoane Wissa a well-deserved rest and sent on Mads Roerslev in his place to allow a return to a more usual formation. This signalled a more relaxed Bees approach to the last 14 minutes now they had the lead their dominance deserved.
They came agonisingly close to a 4th goal in the 77th minute as intricate play between Rico and Toney created space on the left. The former’s cut back into the area was blocked at the near post from where it bounced towards goal and snuck just a whisper wide of goal. This would be the last clear-cut chance for either team until the final 5 minutes of the match as both teams took a break, seeming happy to let the clock run down.
The new relaxed pattern of play was brought to an abrupt end in the 84th minute by another flurry of action on the hosts bench. Lampard chose to withdraw his captain, Seamus Coleman, from play and send Solomon Rondon in his place. What the Everton manager hoped to achieve with this substitution will never be known as the new addition was not long for the match. It was a case of ’84th minute Rondon, 88th minute Rondoff’ as Solomon decided to take the self-destruct button and pummel it to within an inch of its life.
Rondon earnt his red card with a flying tackle on Rico near the touchline far right under my nose. He was completely out of control as he connected with Rico with both set of studs. The ref had no other choice but to give him a straight red and send him trudging down the tunnel for an early bath, despite the protests of the home fans.
That rush of blood to the head meant that Everton would have to finish the match with just 9 men and put the final kibosh on any hopes of snatching a last second equaliser. Their only hope now was to hold on and hope the scoreline didn’t get any worse.
Brentford should have made it worse in the final minute of the regulation 90 when a chip to the back post by DaSilva was met by the forehead of a wide-open Rico. He nodded it back into the 12 yard box where Eriksen met it and curled it towards the right hand corner of the net, but there was a covering defender on the line to whack it clear.
The second red card for their team and the clear lack of any way back into the match led to an impromptu fire-drill in the home stands as the fans left their seats faster than a rat leaves a sinking ship. I have no doubt that they will be back in their droves to cheer their team on in their critical battle against Crystal Palace on Thursday, where a win will once again secure their safety.
As for the away fans, we began to be ushered out of the stadium the second the ref blew for full-time on our 3-2 win. The stewards were not in the mood to let us stay and bask in the victory, but the one pushing me out the exit at least managed a smile when I told him not to worry as Leeds visit us on the final day and with the mood we’re in there’s no way they’ll win. Before the away fans were forced out of our though we did manage a couple of rounds of a chant that I’m sure will be ringing round the Brentford Community Stadium on Sunday.
‘Christian Eriksen, we want you to stay’
I will be heading back to London to soak in that match as Brentford look to end the season on a high and Leeds look to do what Everton could not today, secure the win that keeps them in the Premier League for another season. Will they succeed where Everton could not? Join me next week to find out
The Football tourist 