Coventry 3 – 0 Everton
A third pre-season friendly sees Everton wearing their all-black (with yellow trim) new away kit for this rather dismal defeat to Championship side Coventry City at the Coventry Building Society Arena. Kick-off: 7:45 pm.
There are still a number of Everton first-team players who are not being risked in these pre-season runouts in order to help them regain full fitness for the upcoming season, when the pressure to secure wins and rack up points really starts in earnest.
New loan signing Jesper Lindstrøm still not making his first appearance tonight, even though he has had a few days to settle in. And, today’s new signing, Jake O’Brien, does not feature.
But James Tarkowski is still is missing from the opening pre-season friendlies after suffering a glute injury that caused him to fly home early from the training camp in Ireland. Sean Dyche has said that Tarkowski’s issue is not thought to be serious and he will step up his training this week.
Vitalii Mykolenko, Jarrad Branthwaite and Nathan Patterson are dealing with longer-term issues that cause them to also miss out tonight. Idrissa Gana Gueye is also sidelined., and Chermiti is missing from the squad with a foot problem.
The home side kicked off and the first to have a pop at goal was James Garner. Coleman worked the ball well to find Calvert-Lewin who chested it down a fraction short of Jack Harrison.
From a long throw-in, the ball eventually fell to former Blue Ellis Simms who held back nothing in smashing the ball past Virginia for the first goal.
Jake Allen then fired in a rocket, low and fortunately straight at Joao Virginia. At the other end, Ndiaye scooped a shot well over the Coventry goal. Then, Garner fed a nice enough ball to Calvert-Lewin but his shot was not strong enough to beat the Coventry keeper.
McNeil got a chance to drive forward with the ball but Calvert-Lewin ran ahead of the last defender and the break came to nothing. Ndiaye and Ireogbunam did well to push out from the corner but again it came to nothing.
Calvert-Lewin was gifted a terrible play out by the home side but, with only the goalkeeper to beat, Everton’s star man passed the ball weakly into the keeper’s welcoming hands. Coleman jarred his knee when a Coventry player came down with much of his weight on the side of his leg. But he recovered quickly and was back on his feet.
Young could have played in Ndiaye… but his pass failed and a minute of added time saw us through to the break with Everton trailing.
Doucoure replaced Ndiaye for the second half as Everton resumed. Ireogbuman had a couple of great forward runs but nothing developed. At the other end, Hogate had to make a great challenge to stop another Coventry goal.
A hopeful cross in by Coventry saw Maason-Clark get over Coleman to head past Virginia for their second goal of the evening.
Everton looked to play the forward ball but just couldn’t pull it off and kept playing themselves backwards, Keane gave away a free-kick that was powered toward the top corner by Palmer, pushed behind by Virginia.
A ball finally came to Beto but his shot curled over the angle. And Covemtry’s response was to roll in a third after strolling through Everton’s right flank with far too much ease.
Joao Virginia had to make a fantastic low save to his left to stop the fourth from going in after a Coventry free-kick.
Dixon, on as a late sub, made a lively forward run but could not find a black shirt with his cross. Coventry kept coming forward, looking to further embarrass a poorly structured and seemingly unmotivated Everton side who were just going through their paces for their fitness-mad manager.
Garner tried late on with another wayward shot but it was a disappointing display on pretty much every level.
Everton: Virginia, Coleman (78′ Dixon), Holgate, Keane, Young (78′ Campbell), Harrison, Garner, Iroegbunam, McNeil [Y:67′], Ndiaye (46′ Doucoure), Calvert-Lewin (59′ Beto).
Subs not Used: Crellin, Tyrer, Welch, Whitaker, Onyango, Metcalfe, Armstrong, Okoronkwo, Maupay.
Attendance: 17,439