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Tomas Soucek left him late to awaken from his slumber in the 2021 Premier League opener, but David Moyes and West Ham didn’t give a shit as they celebrated a first win in five outings at Everton. Carlo Ancelotti’s team ran out of ideas and energy as they lost the opportunity to finish second in the table.
The West Ham midfielder scored in the 86th minute to give Moyes his first points at Goodison Park since leaving Everton for Manchester United eight years ago. The game desperately needed their intervention as it was a barren and boring contest until the visitors punished Everton’s laborious display.
After three matches enriched by fan noise, Goodison fell eerily silent once again following the move of the Liverpool city region to level 3 on Wednesday. It was as depressing for the 2,000 who were hoping to start the new year seeing their team in person for the first time since March, as it was for those who had to attend Monday’s postponed game against Manchester City. Although small, assists had played an important role in Everton’s rise up the table and their absence contributed to a moderate affair.
Ancelotti was able to overcome Richarlison after the Brazilian’s head injury against Manchester United in the Carabao Cup, while James Rodríguez returned to the bench after missing the last five games with a calf problem. Everton also had the benefit of an additional break as a result of City’s postponement, at least compared to West Ham playing twice since Christmas Day, but that didn’t translate into any obvious advantage. The home team limited itself to playing their neat and crisp passing triangles in harmless areas, as West Ham, well organized and clear on their goals, cut Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s serve and closed quickly when Richarlison, Gylfi Sigurdsson or Bernard had possession.
The visitors were forced to change goalkeepers belatedly when Lukasz Fabianski suffered an injury during warm-up. His replacement, Darren Randolph, did not have to save until the 45th minute, such was the strength of the defensive shield that surrounded him. Everton’s first shot on goal was a volley from Bernard after a Sigurdsson corner was cleared in his way, but Randolph was up to the effort.
West Ham had arguably the best of the few opportunities that were created in the first half. Jarrod Bowen watched a deflected header from the center of Aaron Cresswell, while the left-back, making his 200th Premier League start for the club, dragged a decent opportunity off target as he found himself in space inside the penalty area. . Sébastian Haller also connected on a Bowen corner kick at point-blank range, but the ball slipped off the top of his head and crossed a packed six-yard area. And, aside from Craig Dawson requiring prolonged treatment after a clumsy fall, that was the sum total of incidents of a flat and disjointed first half.
Seamus Coleman came close to cheering proceedings within seconds of the restart when Cresswell left Tom Davies’s chip in the box, but the Randolph alert was cleared when his Republic of Ireland teammate stepped in for a header. At the opposite end, Haller came within inches of converting a low cross from Declan Rice that crossed Jordan Pickford’s goal.
The Everton goalkeeper made his first save of the match, and impressively, when Cresswell launched a free kick into the far top corner after Ben Godfrey’s foul on Vladimir Coufal. Fornals then made a routine Pickford save from a corner before squandering an excellent opportunity to break an increasingly tedious deadlock. The midfielder was unmarked when Bowen took him out with a dinked cross into the box but, from just eight yards, he missed with a header so wide that a teammate’s scream echoed through the stadium.
Both coaches tried to inject much-needed creativity and quality by introducing Rodríguez, André Gomes, Andriy Yarmolenko, Manuel Lanzini and Michail Antonio from the bench, but only Moyes’s changes were successful. With four minutes remaining, Yarmolenko released Soucek with a clever move. Pickford parried the midfielder’s opening shot on the turn, but the rebound fell to Cresswell, who sent the ball back through the goal where Soucek was at hand, and sideways, to convert.
