Underwhelming performance by Everton

At no point did Everton truly get in the swing of this match. From the start they were playing catch up to West Ham United who looked far more organized across the board. Everton’s defenders were also pressed early and often and struggled to get the ball forward for most of the match.

When the Blues were able to get the ball forward they rarely did anything with it. The midfield combination of Tom Davies and Fabian Delph generated very little offense and spent most of the match playing passes back and forth with the defense. The wingers were no better as starters Theo Walcott and Bernard were unable to make anything happen in the wide areas. The few chances they were presented failed to amount to anything serious.

Finally the defense was largely out of sorts as well. Yerry Mina and Mason Holgate were able to make some decent defensive plays throughout the match but it was the fullbacks who really struggled. Lucas Digne has looked poor as of late and the left back could never really make his mark on this match and Seamus Coleman put in a decent if unnoticeable performance. All of this resulted in a largely underwhelming performance for Everton. They were never outright poor, but every player seemed to be on a different wavelength.

Calvert-Lewin continues his scoring run

With six goals in ten matches, Dominic Calvert-Lewin is on a fairly impressive run. The striker position has been an Achilles heel for Everton since the departure of Romelu Lukaku, but the youngster has finally made the position his own. He is by no means the complete package at forward, but his work-rate and nose for the ball have really done him well in recent weeks.

DCL not only scored his side’s only goal in this match, but he was also front and center for some of Everton best scoring opportunities. He was certainly unfortunate not to have at least one more goal to his name, but it was not for lack of effort. Everton’s struggles in midfield did him no favors in as they struggled to get him the ball in dangerous areas.

For the time being it appears as if the forward position is more or less settled and Everton must look to other places on the pitch to improve.

Anthony Gordon makes his debut

Anthony Gordon made his Premier League debut after coming on for Bernard at the start of the second half. The young midfielder has made his way into the squad a number of times this season and finally got time on the pitch thanks to Bernard’s struggles.

Clearly Carlos Ancelotti thinks highly enough of the player to include him in the team, but he struggled to make much of a mark on this game. Gordon looked understandably hesitant throughout the match and really did not offer much of an improvement over Bernard. It would be unwise to expect too much from such a young player so it will be interesting to see how he figures into Ancelotti’s plans as the season continues.