Resilience

If there was one word to describe Everton’s season, then “resilience” would fit the bill.

Indeed, if there was one word to sum up David Moyes’ Everton sides — plural, that is, given the amount of time his two stints at the club have spanned — then “resilient” would be it.

It would be unfair to just paint Moyes’ Everton as only being a backs-to-the-wall, solid team. As they have proved at times this season, they can definitely play. Dominant displays against Nottingham Forest (home and away), Fulham, Burnley and, most recently, Chelsea, spring to mind immediately.

But Everton are never a club that does things the easy way, and resilience is something they have to show — whether they are clinging on for dear life in a relegation battle, or pushing for European football. Hopefully, one day soon, that same resilience will lead them to a trophy, ending the ludicrous, near 31-year drought.

Last Saturday, Everton’s resilience was on show once again in an away game that seemed to have escaped the Toffees.

Brentford were by no means a level above Everton at the Gtech Community Stadium. Sure, they had created some decent chances, but so had Moyes’ men. Yet when Igor Thiago diverted home Michael Kayode’s shot inadvertently, it felt as though Lady Luck had turned her back on the Toffees.

Yet at its core, this Everton team is now full of players who do not know when to give up — a character that Moyes has helped instil in them. It was there in a different guise under Sean Dyche, when he kept Everton in the Premier League on the final day of the 2022-23 campaign, and then successfully navigated two points deductions in the following season.

However, Dyche’s Everton really were lacking much quality to their play. Some of that was down to personnel, of course, and the financial constraints the club were working under.

But this version of Everton, even if Moyes is relying largely on the same group of core players that were at Dyche’s disposal, has a touch of class to it, and it is that quality that has come to the fore to propel Everton into the European picture.

In west London, as the rain began teeming down in torrential fashion with the game edging into stoppage time, it was that touch of class that made all the difference.

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall — the prime example of why ready-made Premier League players are so highly valued by managers of Moyes’ ilk — had squandered a golden chance when the scores were locked at 1-1.

The former Chelsea man has been so reliable in the big moments this term, it was a shock to see him hesitate when through on goal, turning back onto himself and not trusting his weaker right foot.

But one of the great things about Dewsbury-Hall is his knack of knowing where to be: Right place, right time. And with this Everton team, especially on the road, it always feels as though there will be another chance, another moment to right a wrong.

That moment came Dewsbury-Hall’s way, and he pounced on it in style. Not enough credit has been given to just how good his first-time finish, from a tight angle and through a crowd of Brentford defenders, was.

And as Dewsbury-Hall wheeled away in celebration, and Everton subsequently held firm for a hard-earned point that keeps them on level pegging with Brentford and just a point behind out-of-form Chelsea, that word sprang to mind again: “Resilience”.

It’s the kind of resilience that saw Everton go three months unbeaten on the road, with the defeats at either end of that run coming at Stamford Bridge and the Emirates. It is the kind of resilience that saw Everton beat Manchester United 1-0 at Old Trafford, despite playing 80 minutes with 10 men. And it’s the kind of resilience that Everton are going to need if they are to get themselves over the line in the most congested fight for European qualification in recent memory.

Avoiding defeat at Brentford was vital, and though the pressure is on from teams below them, Everton kept the momentum going, by hook or by crook. The challenge is now to keep it going for another six games.

 

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