Everton Stuns Brighton With 5 Goals To Keep Premier League Survival Hopes Alive

Everton enjoyed an express start at the Amex Stadum in Brighton on Monday afternoon when Abdoulaye Doucoure gave Sean Dyche’s team the lead after just 32 seconds.

Everton was looking to stay on track for Premier League survival, and this goal was the beginning of a startlingly impressive first half for the relegation battlers who went in at halftime 3-0 up.

It was all the more remarkable as Brighton & Hove Albion had been one of the Premier League’s outstanding teams in the 2022/23 season.

The club has managed to improve even further under manager Roberto De Zerbi who came in to the club after the impressive job done by Graham Potter saw him snapped up by new Chelsea owner Todd Boehly.

It has been a completely different story for Everton this season, who changed manager for more negative reasons. Dyche replaced Frank Lampard as the club dropped further and further down the table with apparently no idea how to stop the rot.

Dyche has given the team an identity and has looked to improve defensive organisation, but it has been far from smooth sailing. After winning in his first game in charge, against then league leaders Arsenal no less, only two further victories arrived in the next 13 games.

Everton picked up a useful five points from five draws, but on arriving on England’s south coast for this latest fixture, Everton had not won in seven games.

Everything pointed to another win for the impressive Brighton against lowly struggling Everton, but Dyche had different ideas.

De Zerbi has been lauded during his time at Brighton for his innovative tactics and inventive possession play.

Speaking to Sky Italia, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said of De Zerbi: “We have an Italian coach here, he’s called Roberto De Zerbi and he’s changing many things in English football, playing marvellous football, he is doing incredibly well.”

Brighton’s style under De Zerbi almost baits the opposition into pressing them before passing quickly into the open spaces this creates.

It is apparently high-risk, but if the players are technically good and confident in what they are doing, then it can be very effective, as Everton found out in this fixture at Goodison Park earlier in the season.

To combat this, Dyche put the breaks on Everton’s usual high press when the opposition are playing our from the back and had his players sit slightly deeper, remaining compact, and closed off the spaces Brighton normally likes to work in.

It meant the players weren’t drawn into Brighton’s traps, and were well-positioned to defend in numbers.

Everton’s own threat then came on the counter-attack. As Brighton pushed players forward to try to find gaps, this left spaces in their own defence.

Even then, Brighton might have been confident that Everton wouldn’t have the quality to exploit this space. Dyche’s team has struggled to find goals this season, and going into this game no team had scored fewer in the Premier League than Everton.

But with center-forward Dominic Calvert-Lewin back in the team and gaining match sharpness, there was an outlet for Everton to find at the beginning of each counter-attack. Alex Iwobi, Dwight McNeil, and Doucoure then sprinted forward in support.

Doucoure’s first was assisted by Calvert-Lewin, his second by McNeil, before McNeil himself crossed from a dangerous area and saw the ball deflect into the goal off Brighton goalkeeper Jason Steele.

Brighton piled on the pressure in the second half, forcing some good saves from Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

The home side eventually scored rather fortunately via Alexis MacAllister, but not before Everton had found a fourth. It epitomised the counter-attacking play as Iwobi broke before finding McNeil who dribbled around Steele to tap in from close range.

McNeil fired in his second and Everton’s fifth in added time at the end of the game to leave Brighton stunned.

The specifics of Brighton’s tactics may have given Everton focus, and they produced a surprising result which could be massive in their quest to avoid relegation. Pep Guardiola’s Man City are next.