How the national media reacted to Everton's 4-0 Premier League defeat at Tottenham Hotspur
Shambles was a word that was repeated across several of the reports on Everton’s miserable defeat at Tottenham Hotspur. The Blues’ injury misfortune was acknowledged but few reporters who watched events unfold in north London took any encouragement from the away side's display.
Instead, the 4-0 defeat was the pretext for discussions about the importance of the final days of the transfer window, the threat of another relegation battle and even over Sean Dyche’s future.
Timothy Abraham at the BBC described an apparent sense of resignation among the travelling supporters, many of whom had left by the final whistle.
He wrote: “The manner of this drubbing at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will set the alarm bells ringing for Everton fans, who scurried for the Seven Sisters Road long before the full-time whistle went.
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“There is the unerring sense that the die for the Blues has already been cast and another glum season of relegation toil awaits.”
Gary Jacob, writing for The Times, set Everton’s injury misfortune against the backdrop of self-inflicted problems - most notably in this match the Jordan Pickford mistake that gave away the second goal and ended this game as a contest. He wrote: “Everton are a once great club fumbling in the dark and things might get worse rather than better while the transfer market is open.
“They have lost both opening league matches by a margin of three or more goals for the first time in the club’s history and are yet to find the net. They are also winless in 12 away league fixtures stretching back to beating Burnley in December.
“Their season has quickly unravelled into a shambles in part of their own making, taking in the financial issues resulting from past overspending, questions over a change of ownership, a depleted and limited squad and Jordan Pickford’s howler that allowed them to fall 2-0 down inside 25 minutes.”
Matt Barlow in the Mail said Everton were left “looking rather feeble”. He wrote: “They have leaked seven goals in their first two games without finding the net, have not won away from home in 2024 and the threat of points deductions still lingers in the background.
“They were depleted and patched-up in North London and on the back foot from the outset.”
The lack of spirit was a key theme in most reports, with Jacob Steinberg of The Guardian asking: “Where was the anger? The soul? Where was the resistance when Cristian Romero powered in a header in the second half?”
He drew on the post-match comments of Blues boss Dyche that his side was too “subservient” and wrote: “It was an abject surrender, typified by Pickford losing the ball before Son Heung-min’s first goal midway through the first half, and it is hard not to conclude Everton are destined for another grim battle for survival.
“Reinforcements are required before the transfer window shuts even though money is tight, while more adventure in possession would not go amiss.”
Jim White in The Telegraph suggested Dyche was almost rewarded when he did try to inject some creativity - leading to Jesper Lindstrom testing Guglielmo Vicario shortly after his entrance. But his summary of the situation - that “it was as close to a one sided match as you would see in the Premier League” - led to the suggestion the return of an out-of-work David Moyes is not as distant as it seemed 10 days ago.
He concluded: “After the match, Dyche recognised the issues at hand. “In the past, we have done well when the challenges have come our way,” he said. “Anger doesn’t change anything. What changes anything is action. I’ll be taking action.”
“Frankly, he needs to. And fast. Much more of this and David Moyes’s return to the club before the first international break looks ever more plausible.”
In the ECHO, there was no such prophecy but the point that, for all the issues that made this match such a tough prospect from the outset, the search for a solution to Everton’s problems must go deeper than putting them all down to injuries and misfortune: “This was always going to be an uphill struggle for a threadbare Everton side dealing with an injury nightmare.
“Yet at no point did Everton look capable of being able to compete in this match. And for that, this defeat cannot be written off as simply another bad day. After two games Everton lie at the foot of the Premier League table having lost two games, conceded seven goals and not only having failed to score, but having managed just two shots on target across more than 180 minutes. The squad will improve and the opponents should get easier.
“But according to Opta, Everton have lost their first two games in a top-flight season by three or more goals for the first time in their history. If the final week of the transfer window is unlikely to provide a solution then answers need to be found from elsewhere.
“That search needs to begin with an acceptance that not all of the blame for this miserable start can be put down to injury misfortune, controversial refereeing decisions and a lack of Premier League experience.