(Football news) Last Sunday, Everton was destroyed 2-0 by Manchester City, two days before the Eagles suffered a 3-1 defeat at Selhurst Park to London rivals Chelsea.
Few strikers could outmuscle the formidable Jarrad Branthwaite with such effortless ease, but Erling Haaland was back to his irrepressible self at the Etihad Stadium, and not even the highly sought-after, six-foot-five Everton defender had the answer to halt his advances.
As was customary for Dyche, Everton mounted a brilliant defensive effort on the home field of the treble winners to reach the 70-minute mark without conceding a goal. However, a fierce goal from Haaland eventually broke the deadlock, and the Norwegian then bullied Branthwaite out of the way to double his afternoon total.
As applaudable as the Toffees’ efforts were in Manchester, failure to glean any precious points means that Dyche’s troops remain below the dotted line in 18th place in the table – currently one point adrift of Luton Town having played a game more – and they are still waiting for their first Premier League maximum of the New Year.
After exploding out of the blocks in the advent season with four wins from their first four top-flight fixtures in December, Everton are now without a single top-flight success in their last seven attempts – no team in the Premier League is on a worse run of successive matches without a triumph.
Furthermore, the Toffees have fallen back into bad attacking habits – four of their last five fixtures in the Premier League have seen them fail to find the back of the net – although their only win from their last 11 matches in all competitions came against none other than Monday’s opponents.
Although it was expected that Roy Hodgson’s tenure as manager would soon come to an end, his Crystal Palace team has been conceding goals at an alarming rate since he oversaw a 1-0 loss to Everton in January’s FA Cup third-round replay. However, after concerning news surfaced in midweek, criticism of his tactics was replaced with empathy.
When Palace announced that the under-fire Hodgson had become ill in training and would not be able to perform his pre-match media duties, some were skeptical. However, the 76-year-old is now stable in the hospital and is still getting a lot of support from people in the football community.
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