Everton 1-1 Southampton: Instant Reaction

A less than thrilling draw where the scoring came from individiual moments of brilliance provided by Danny Ings for Southampton and our own Lucas Digne in the first half.

First Half

It could have been worse. As badly as we started out this match, we could have found ourselves down two or three goals in the first twenty minutes. Instead, the ball told the truth the ref couldn’t to keep out a penalty, and Lucas Digne sent one of the best passes you’ll ever see to Richarlison for a 1-1 halftime score that held to the end of the match.

Our midfield pivot really doesn’t do much. We are basically asking them to not do anything stupid and I gotta say once things settled in that’s pretty much what Davies and Sigurdsson did. Nothing remarkable about either performance but nothing I’m going out of my way to criticize either.

Second Half

To be honest, after the initial spell, the game was ugly but it wasn’t a horrific performance. Gylfi stepped for an exhausted Gomes (who took a knock) just before the break, Sidibe stepped in for an off the pace Iwobi (who still had an excellent shot on target tonight) and things sort of stabilized into an extended slog where both teams seemed to accept the draw more and more. Moise Kean looked lively in the action he got, particularly in an enterprising run into the Southampton box with the ball at his feet.

Ultimately, we don’t learn anything new. We have some really talented players, we don’t have much depth (missing Mason Holgate was incredibly obvious in the first half), and the tactics are more or less what we have to do to keep treading water until we can get to a transfer window and find Carlo some reinforcements.

Takeaways

I don’t think we should be too negative about this one. Southampton have been in good form since the restart, our guys were clearly tired, we got a draw. That’s all fine. We already have accepted that European football isn’t happening next year, Anthony Gordon looks more and more promising every week, our strike partnership does nice things, etc. All positives. Those things are more important than the holes in this roster that we all know need fixing.