Wolves 3 – 0 Everton
Everton served up their worst performance since their 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Aston Villa back in August as they were soundly beaten by Wolves at Molineux to end the year with their fourth successive defeat in all competitions.
Max Kilman had scrambled home the opener in the 25th minute but while the Blues were fortunate to only be 1-0 at half-time, Sean Dyche delayed making any changes to a demonstrably weak 3-5-2 formation until the hosts had extended their lead to 3-0 and the game was irretrievably lost.
Dwight McNeil rattled the woodwork with 22 minutes left but Everton, so positive in defeat at Tottenham a week ago, were mostly atrocious on the day and failed to register a single effort on target in the 90-plus minutes.
With Abdoulaye Doucouré still out injured and Idrissa Gueye also ruled out, Dyche had opted for a five-man defence that included Michael Keane but involved the 30-year-old playing in the middle and James Tarkowski operating uncomfortably on the right of a central three.
Jack Harrison was handed the task of playing off Dominic Calvert-Lewin in Doucouré’s absence but Everton looked jaded and disjointed from the first whistle. Wolves were sharper, quicker and made all the early running, with Hwang Hee-Chan once again proving to be a thorn in the Toffees’ side.
The South Korean was played into oceans of space in only the second minute after Amadou Onana had inexplicably passed straight to Kilman at the other end but he had cut inside and tried to find Matheus Cunha in the six-yard box, Jarrad Branthwaite made a crucial block.
The visitors were caught on the break again four minutes later when James Garner made a mess of trying to control the ball in midfield and Hwang was sent away again but Jordan Pickford did enough to close him down and the chance was wasted.
Cunha bent a shot inches wide from 25 yards on the quarter-hour mark while Everton struggled to put anything meaningful together in their attacking third until McNeil blazed a speculative effort over from outside the area.
Time and again, Dyche’s side failed to find another grey jersey with a pass or overhit their throughballs; their hosts, meanwhile, were crisp and incisive by comparison.
Wolves’s first would come following a corner, though, when Everton failed to adequately clear their lines and Nelson Semedo was left with time to whip the ball across goal. Craig Dawson was denied well by Pickford from point-blank range but Kilman was quickest to the loose ball and stabbed it home.
Calvert-Lewin had a chance to register an almost immediate reply when McNeil threaded a pass in behind the defence but the striker slid his shot across goal and wide as Jose Sa rushed off his line to close the angle.
Semedo flashed another delivery into the six-yard box that just eluded Sarabia with half an hour gone and although the Blues had the better of the closing stages of the first period, they couldn’t unduly trouble the keeper.
Onana split the defence with a delicious pass for Calvert-Lewin who was flagged offside but not before he had again failed to find the target with just Sa to beat.
The game was crying out for a change in system and personnel from Dyche but he was made to pay for his inaction just eight minutes into the second half.
Sarabia cut in from the right touchline and split the Everton defence with a pass to Hwang who accelerated past the lumbering Keane and crossed low where Cunha had the simple task of tapping in from close range to make it 2-0.
It probably should have been 3-0 on the hour mark when a horrendous error by Tarkowski gifted Hwang with a chance but Pickford denied him with a superb one-handed save.
That, however, merely delayed the inevitable. Two minutes after that, Dawson was left unmarked in the box following a set-piece and when the ball was sent back in, the defender stuck out a leg and diverted it past Pickford to effectively kill the contest.
Dyche finally responded by withdrawing Nathan Patterson and Keane in favour of Seamus Coleman and André Gomes and though McNeil hammered a spinning effort off the post, the real chances kept falling the way of the hosts.
Wolves split the Everton defence again with a rapier-like passing move but Gomes’s shot was parried and gathered by Pickford before Cunha splut the visitors’ back line for Hwang but the England keeper foiled him once more.
Both Hwang and substitute Pedro Neto would have the ball in the net in the closing stages, the second occasion coming from yet more unprofessional play by Pickford trying to play out from the back, but both goals were ruled out for offside while Harrison wasted a chance for a consolation in stoppage time by screwing his shot across goal.
If the defeat to Manchester City in midweek was one to quickly forget and move on, this heavy loss and the abject display that accompanied it should provide plenty of food for thought and material for analysis for Dyche and his coaching staff.
A heavy December schedule has taken its toll on a core group of players who have carried its burden and it showed in this leggy and tired display.
As has been the case too often this season, Everton were wasteful with the ball, executed poorly in the final third and looked woefully ill-at-ease with a five-man defence.
On other occasions, the presence of Doucouré and sheer effort and determination has made the difference and allowed the team to pick up some valuable wins away from home. Without the Frenchman, the Toffees look lost, have failed to win when he isn’t in the side and the manager has yet to find an effective way of coping in his absence.
The result leaves Everton sitting just a place and a point above the relegation zone heading into the New Year with an unforgiving sequence of four Premier League matches against Villa, Fulham, Tottenham and City to come after the tricky FA Cup tie away to Crystal Palace next Thursday.