Chelsea 6 – 0 Everton
Everton suffered their heaviest defeat in 19 years and saw their goal-difference advantage over relegation rivals Nottingham Forest wiped out on a horrifying and potentially damaging evening at Stamford Bridge against erratic Chelsea.
The defensive solidity for which Sean Dyche teams are known evaporated amid both his decision to deploy a suicidally high line and disgracefully half-hearted defending by his players against a highly talented side and Cole Palmer ripped the Blues apart on his way to a four-goal haul that inflicted on their increasingly hapless manager the worst loss of his coaching career.
Against a team that has now only won once in 15 Premier League games and which has scored just nine goals since the turn of the year, the game was essentially won for the Londoners before 20 minutes had elapsed when Palmer stole in untracked to nod in his second and make it 2-0 to the hosts.
He added a third in the 29th minute when Jordan Pickford senselessly gave it straight to him with an ill-advised pass looking for Amadou Onana and was comfortably lobbed from 25 yards before the on-fire striker wrestled the ball off two team-mates to stroke home his fourth from the penalty spot in the second half.
That made it 5-0 and Alfie Gilchrist came off the bench late on to lash home a sixth and leave Everton and Dyche, who lost Jarrad Branthwaite and Nathan Patterson to injury, to make the long trip back to Merseyside contemplating the club’s future ahead of a massive game against Forest at Goodison Park on Sunday.
With Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Idrissa Gueye missing with a tight hamstring and calf respectively, Dyche restored Beto and Amadou Onana to the starting XI, the latter alongside James Garner, but neither central midfielder made it past half-time.
Everton’s mid-section was overrun in the first period; their defence just as porous as Branthwaite was nutmegged by Palmer who collected a lay-off from Nicholas Jackson before curling the ball around Pickford to open the floodgates in the 13th minute.
Ironically, it was Everton who might have scored first when Seamus Coleman fizzed a ball across the six-yard box at the end of a move of rare quality from the Toffees but it flew off Beto’s shin and over the crossbar from close range.
The willing but fundamentally limited Portuguese would have the lion’s share of what few opportunities Everton created on the night but the chasm in quality between the two outfits was embarrassing at times, exemplified by Palmer to whom the visitors could find no answer.
He almost doubled his tally in the 15th minute when Noni Madueke took Conor Gallagher’s pass to the byline and clipped it across the face of Everton’s goal but it was slightly behind the 21-year-old forward who couldn’t readjust his body to bundle it home.
Three minutes after that, though, he did find the net when Gallagher got to the byline as easily as his team-mate had and cut it back for Jackson. Pickford parried the resulting shot but only into the path of Palmer who had continued his run between three statuesque salmon-pink defenders.
Garner’s sloppy giveaway on a what was a torrid evening almost gifted Jackson the third but he sliced his shot narrowly wide before being booked for tripping Palmer but Pickford’s unforgivable sloppiness handed Palmer his hat-trick on a gilded platter.
Despite already being in a desperately deep hole, Everton rallied a bit in the final 15 minutes of the half and had the ball in the net through Beto but he was at least a yard offside when Ashley Young swept the ball in from the right flank.
Beto was in the right place to almost meet James Tarkowski’s volleyed cross off a trademark set-piece but Marc Cucurella shanked it behind before the awkward Blues striker was played in by Dwight McNeil and forced a save from Djordje Petrovic in the 44th minute.
Almost immediately, though, it was 4-0 to Chelsea. Everton’s offside trap was easily sprung and when Cucurella’s cross found Jackson in the area, he took a touch before swivelling home a tidy finish inside the post.
With damage-limitation no doubt on his mind, Dyche withdrew Onana, Garner and Coleman at the break and threw on André Gomes, Patterson and Jack Harrison and Branthwaite had a chance five minutes after the restart but, like Onana just before half-time, couldn’t put his header from a corner on target at the back post.
Palmer went very close to making it 5-0 when Mykhailo Mudryk slipped him in between the centre-halves but Pickford denied him with a smart save with his foot while the England keeper’s failure to grab a low cross from the right almost ended with the ball ricocheting into the net off Patterson a few minutes later.
But things would get worse for Everton, first when Branthwaite limped off to be replaced by Michael Keane and then when Abdoulaye Doucouré clumsily felled Palmer in his own box and referee Paul Tierney awarded a penalty that the Chelsea star converted with aplomb.
Beto seized on a loose ball and belted a right-foot shot off target from just inside the box at one end and Mudryk wasted an opening by side-footing tamely at the keeper at the other but as the game entered stoppage time, Mauricio Pochettino’s men completed their demolition job.
Ben Chilwell ranked a shot goal-wards from the angle that Pickford pushed away to the other side of his area but Gilchrist was there to rap the ball home to make it 6-0.
Patterson was helped off in the aftermath having pulled his hamstring chasing back to try and defend the attack and was replaced by Ben Godfrey. Beto had one last chance at a consolation goal repelled by Petrovic before Tierney put Everton out of their misery following seven minutes of added time.
In the context of what has been a horrendous run of form since that brief flurry of results in December that saw the Toffees win four on the bounce, this implosion plumbed new depths for a team that is getting demonstrably worse under another failing managerial tenure.
As was the case following what was another dreadful showing at Bournemouth at the end of last month, it would be hard to see how Dyche could survive in his post were it not for the void of leadership at the top of the club with Farhad Moshiri having one foot out the door since September.
Curiously enough, the “absentee landlord” was in attendance at Stamford Bridge alongside 777 Partners representative Joshua Dreyfus, watching where three quarters of a billion pounds has got him and even he must be alarmed at the danger the Club is now in with just two points separating it from the relegation zone.
Demotion to the Championship would be catastrophic and something urgently needs to change before the weekend. Everton are in no financial position to sack and appoint another manager, as much as this display and run of results might demand it, so that means a different tactical approach and, certainly, a radical shift in mentality.
Whether the latest busted flush in the head-coaching role at Everton can achieve it remains to be seen but the club’s very survival may depend on it. Pray this sickening and disgraceful showing is the nadir, Blues; these players owe us a performance on Sunday.