At least Everton have found a way to stop giving away two-goal leads: just score once. Despite dominating the first hour of what even at this stage of the season looks like a relegation battle, deservedly leading through Iliman Ndiaye’s first top-flight goal, they are still seeking their first win of the Premier League season.
In a match that will be more remembered for a torrential downpour, Leicester, who are also without a win, finished strongly to earn their third point of the season through Stephy Mavididi’s equaliser 16 minutes from time.
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Everton did not start like a team struggling for confidence. Indeed, they should have been ahead even before they opened the scoring, Jesper Lindstrøm arriving late at the back post, unmarked, only to volley wide Ndiaye’s superb cross from the left.
Ndiaye was excellent. The former Sheffield United winger gave his team their lead when, having lent the ball to Ashley Young, he surged on to the full-back’s brilliant return pass inside the penalty area, skipped past Harry Winks and pulled his shot in off the near post, wrongfooting Mads Hermansen in the process.
At that point, the heavens opened; for Everton, the floodgates could have done likewise, so much better were they than Leicester at this stage. As biblical rain presaged thunder and lightning, however, the chances Sean Dyche’s side made did not match their dominance.
Slick, compact yet always threatening penetration through Ndiaye on the left flank and Dwight McNeil through the middle, they looked anything but a team without a point, more like a team with a point to prove.
With Jarrad Branthwaite due to start his comeback with the Under-21s, the central defensive duo of Michael Keane and James Tarkowski were retained, despite shipping an average of 2.6 goals a game. Jake O’Brien, the £16million signing from Lyon, again started on the bench.
Leicester were awful in the first half. Although Jordan Pickford juggled Mavididi’s mis-hit cross against the inside of his own post, Steve Cooper’s poor run looked set to continue. The former Nottingham Forest manager has only one win from his last 18 games in the Premier League and had spent much of the past week complaining about Crystal Palace’s first goal after Leicester let slip a two-goal lead last weekend.
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At least Leicester had come through that game with a point; Everton had twice in succession lost after leading 2-0. That appeared to be the only saving grace when they did not double their lead this time, with Ndiaye cracking a rising shot just over the angle early in the second half and nearly being found by Lindstrøm in a two-on-one attack. Hermansen had to make a great diving save to repel Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s shot as Everton kept countering in dynamic fashion.
Yet Leicester are nothing if not doughty. Caleb Okoli, the £12.6million summer signing from Atalanta, headed one difficult chance over from Mavididi’s dinked close-range pass. As the storm subsided into a mere deluge, Everton tired. Dyche had pointed out he had only 12 fit outfield players for last Tuesday’s Carabao Cup game with Southampton, when they lost on penalties, and here he had to play James Garner at right-back. Orel Mangala did well in the midfield anchor role but this was his first league start for the club since joining on loan from Lyon and Leicester finished the game on the up.
Mavididi, their most creative player, equalised when Winks’s corner fell his way inside the six-yard area and his shot on the turn bounced down into the ground and up into the net.
