Everton Crushed By Brighton 3-0
- Spirit of The News
- Aug 17, 2024
- 3 min read
Everton were crushed 3-0 by Brighton at Goodison Park, ultimately creating a depressive tone for all Evertonians today, as this first step on the wrong foot will not help the club's aspirations to play Premier League football next season in the new stadium.
The ritual of sunny skies across the country for the opening weekend of the Premier League season was in full force, with happy faces all around. However, the Everton lineup put out by Sean Dyche was very questionable. Instead of allowing recent signing Jake O’Brien to make his domestic debut, Michael Keane was picked ahead of him.
Lineups:
Everton:
Jordan Pickford
Mykolenko
Tarkowski
Keane
Young
Iroegbunam
Gueye
McNeil
Doucoure
Harrison
Calvert-Lewin
Brighton:
Steele
Hinshelwood
Dunk
van Hecke
Veltman
Wieffer
Milner
Mitoma
Pedro
Minteh
Welbeck
The common occurrence of false hope again emerges for Everton, as in the 25th minute, Minteh received the ball and defeated Ukrainian fullback Mykolenko, then whipped the ball across to Mitoma, who had a simple job from approximately 3 yards out to slot it into the Gwladys Street net.
The celebrations by Brighton players made home fans who were sitting in that corner of the ground quite rowdy. Minteh, who was close to joining the Toffees this summer, but Calvert-Lewin's move to Newcastle blocked the transfer from occurring, expressed his love for the Seagulls by pointing and kissing the badge. Objects were thrown from the stands in the general direction of the Brighton players, who were congregating and celebrating. That was it for the first half.
Into the second half, and early on, Lewis Dunk brought down Dominic Calvert-Lewin inside the penalty area for a possible penalty shout. It was initially given by referee Simon Hooper, and an extremely controversial decision emerged. According to the ECHO and BBC Sport, the VAR screen was not available due to a technical issue. If this were the case, you would assume the referee would stick with his on-field decision; however, this wasn’t the case, and the penalty was overturned. Utterly outrageous.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin Everton Stats:
Appearances: 247
Goals: 68
Assists: 16
It only took Brighton 8 minutes to respond from this scare, where Danny Welbeck picked up the ball from a poor giveaway by Idrissa Gana Gueye, and he was striving towards Jordan Pickford’s net. When he reached the Everton back line, both Michael Keane and James Tarkoswki moved in opposite directions towards their touch lines, allowing him to have a clear shot on goal, which Welbeck delivered well as it flew into the bottom left corner.
Following the two-goal deficit, a poor touch by Ashley Young gave Mitoma a clear run-through on goal; however, the 39-year-old had no choice but to hack the winger down as he was the last man, resulting in a red card, meaning winger Dwight McNeil had to play right back, and soon enough, Mason Holgate, who is not rated by the majority of fans inside Goodison today, as evident by the poor reception given when entering the pitch, was brought on.
It wasn’t long after that it ended up 3-0! And then, 4-0! Luckily, however, the fourth goal was chalked off by VAR, but still a completely horrid collective performance, with only really Tim Ireogbunam playing exceptionally well.
Gameweek 1:
Friday 16th August:
Manchester United 1-0 Fulham
Saturday 17th August:
Ipswich 0-2 Liverpool
Arsenal 2-0 Wolves
Everton 0-3 Brighton
Newcastle 1-0 Southampton
Nottingham Forest 1-1 Bournemouth
West Ham 17:30 Burnley
Sunday 18th August:
Brentford 14:00 Crystal Palace
Chelsea 16:30 Manchester City
Monday 19th August:
Leicester 20:00 Spurs
Next Up:
Saturday 24th August @ 15:00
Tottenham v Everton
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Premier League
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