Putting the, 'hang on, we're good?’ in Goodison: Everton 0 Leicester City 2 (05 November 2022)
Via @beckytLCFC
Hello, Leicester – we've missed you more than you'll know.
On Saturday evening at Goodison Park, the team was good. Really good. There's just nowhere else to start than this linguistically challenged appraisal of our performance on Merseyside; one that ended with a rare away win and means we've conceded just one goal in our last five Premier League games.
Wout a guy
This is a different team with a very different vibe about it now. James Maddison might have crackled with stardust from the get-go this year, but now he's finally got some pals to join him. Youri Tielemans is giving his personal goal of the season competition a good go; Harvey Barnes is laying into opposition full-backs at will; Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is becoming ever-more influential.
Then there's the defence. To a man, they've improved in line with this resurgence, but no one has made an impact quite like Wout Faes – a signing so brilliant you wonder how he was ever allowed to look like such a desperate lunge for £15m on deadline day.
Maddison edged him for man of the match at Goodison, but the Belgian's dominance, controlled aggression and calming presence – all becoming character traits now, not merely promising early signs – meant this was another cult hero display. To watch him greet another block or won tackle with a fist pump is to see a bloke truly at one with his new surroundings and the inglorious arts of defending.
It's displays like this which really should put last weekend's defeat to Manchester City in perspective. Most fans were satisfied with it, but for the rest this showed that Brendan Rodgers has no fears about playing on the front foot with this team when it's right to do so. Suddenly, it looks like there’s a real gameplan with each fixture; crucial attention to detail and resolve that was so painfully lacking before.
Mercifully, Rodgers appears to have also learned some very harsh lessons – earlier in the season, Saturday evening's subs may have led to Leicester retreating into submission, this time they were round pegs in round holes which kept the energy high and helped turn a squeaky 1-0 into two.
Human fireworks
For much of the first half, it was a game characterised by the energy of two teams that know they're better than they were before, but defined by the kind of final-third quality which their league positions suggested. Leicester were better but Everton had the superior chance when Bouba Soumaré got caught in midfield and Alex Iwobi arrowed a glorious opportunity wide.
With Maddison, though, there's almost an unfair advantage right now. His continued poking and probing helped carve out chances for both himself and his team-mates, which were sadly squandered by some powderpuff finishing.
The harder way eventually proved more profitable for Leicester. After a glorious arcing ball from Dewsbury-Hall sent Barnes away down the left, it was Maddison on hand to provide some calm in the chaos of a resulting penalty box scramble. His ball back to Tielemans teed up the Belgian for another moment of mickey-taking excellence, following a similar worldie at Wolves and near miss against Man City. On a night where fireworks briefly stopped play, it was easily the most spectacular of the lot.
In the second half, you never felt like we could be truly comfortable until we got a second goal – ultimately, the opportunities that Everton created were of our own making, but eventually snuffed out by a combination of better goalkeeping, defending and general ineptitude from the hosts.
When that second goal eventually did arrive, there was a heady sense of relief intertwined with the vindication of a huge win earned. That it came via more great work from Maddison and an outstanding finish from Barnes, who'd toiled in front of goal otherwise on the night, was all the sweeter.
Break it up
In terms of gripes, there really can be few. But for BBC balance, you might argue that a better team would have punished our odd lapse. The booing of Demarai Gray is a shame, both unimaginably thick and weird as it is. And Danny Ward, though genuinely solid in our recent stretch, will definitely cost us at least one goal with his drunk air traffic controller approach to dealing with corners.
The bottom half of the table is such a bizarre mish-mash that we ended Saturday 13th, the same day we were briefly bottom when other scores were going against us. As it is, with only a game at West Ham left to come before the break, we're now set up for the World Cup with our prospects far brighter.
And it feels... good.
