If nothing else, Everton contrived to make the worst start in their history even worse. They found a different way of losing, even as Sean Dyche maintained the wrong sort of 100 per cent record. They have played six Premier League games in August under him, losing each. Dycheball is apparently not a summer sport – he began with a 12.5 per cent win rate in the top flight in the month; and after an extraordinary Bournemouth comeback, it was lower still.
And if Everton spent 86 minutes making a case that they were not the season’s first crisis club, the subsequent meltdown suggested otherwise. There were three Bournemouth goals in nine minutes, and there could have been three more. Everton had conceded three to Brighton, four to Tottenham, but this time the defensive deficiencies came after leading. When Brighton won at Goodison Park, it was deserted by the end. When Bournemouth did, the Evertonian public were packed in because, little earlier, they had been raucous when Everton were rampant. And then suddenly Everton were ragged and they were wracked with nerves.
Which may be how they spend their season. Given Everton’s summer has seen two takeovers fall through, with the club’s future mired in uncertainty and pessimism part of the psyche, any more time spent chained to the foot of the table could be particularly damaging. So, too, any repeat of the kind of self-destructive streak they showed here.
For Dyche, a man who takes particular pleasure in being proved right, an afternoon that was seeming to offer vindication in abundance then acquired a chastening look. Dyche fashioned Everton’s lead but Andoni Iraola was the creator of a comeback while his Everton counterpart was too slow to react.
The Basque was proactive. First he made a triple substitution, then a double change. It transformed Bournemouth’s fortunes. Their first two goals were made by a substitute and scored by a starter. Antoine Semenyo converted Dango Ouattara’s magnificently menacing cross. Then Luis Sinisterra turned provider and Lewis Cook scored the kind of goal he is not expected to: charging into the box, planting a towering header into the net. The winner, meanwhile, was created by a starter, Justin Kluivert crossing, and scored by a substitute, Sinisterra arriving at the far post.
A Dyche team should not be so susceptible to crosses or collapses. They are rarely this porous: they had the fourth-best defensive record last season and have already conceded 10 times in three matches this year. It could have been more: injury time also included Jordan Pickford’s close-range save from Marcus Tavernier, his stop from Semenyo’s long-range shot and when the latter fired wide from 20 yards. Within nine minutes of football, Bournemouth had six fine openings.
And Everton felt powerless to react. They lost their outlet when the excellent Iliman Ndiaye was taken off. They seemed to lose their running power, too; a defence with three thirty-somethings and a 34-year-old holding midfielder exposed by Bournemouth’s fresh legs and fresher minds. Dyche made two changes, Iraola five.
Everton are still winless and pointless, but no longer goalless. And that reflected what they did right, before it went all wrong. If Dyche is often deemed defensive and Everton only mustered two shots on target across their losses to Brighton and Tottenham, they had eight here. Kepa Arrizabalaga had a busy Bournemouth debut, a terrific save to deny Seamus Coleman a glorious goal acquiring an added importance come the final whistle.
For almost all the game, Dyche’s familiar formula seemed to be working. Everton struck from the second phase of a set-piece, with a goal scored by a former Burnley player. A strapping centre-forward scored a goal made by a former Burnley player.
And this had Dyche’s fingerprints all over it. He has an aversion to doing what the wider world wants and, when Ndiaye was given a first league start, the sense was that his dancing feet would be deployed as a No 10. Instead, the newcomer was consigned to the left wing, Dwight McNeil granted the central role. And if McNeil – a Burnley alumnus – has less flair, he nonetheless created a goal. Ndiaye, meanwhile, sparkled when cutting in from the flank.
Even as Dyche dropped one of his favourites, in Abdoulaye Doucoure, he kept faith in another, in Michael Keane, who many an Evertonian would happily have seen omitted for the new signing Jake O’Brien. Dyche’s loyalty to a Burnley favourite served him well when Keane provided an adept finish after Dominic Calvert-Lewin chested down Jack Harrison’s cross. Then McNeil guided a pass into the path of Calvert-Lewin, who dinked a shot over Arrizabalaga.
But the classic Dyche teams hold on to leads. With Keane at the heart of their defence, this one snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Dyche’s August curse continued and Everton’s problems increased.
