Analysis from Chris Beesley after Everton’s clash with Aston Villa in the League Cup
Aston Villa allegedly hijacked the contract and forced Harrison to transfer to the West Midlands instead in August, shortly after it was reported that he had traveled to Finch Farm for a medical.
Nerves were jangling again as the downtrodden Blues were still stinging from losing Arnaut Danjuma to Tottenham Hotspur at the eleventh hour in January, as the Dutchman got off his train at Crewe, even if he would eventually sign with Everton a second time this summer.
In the end, it turned out to be a false alarm because Unai Emery allegedly was unaware that Harrison was still injured at the time. However, after making his Blues debut, the 26-year-old will be motivated to prove that patience pays off now that he is healthy.
Just six days after Harrison joined Everton, they lost 4-0 to Villa, and he might have wondered what he had gotten himself into. However, five weeks later, things are looking much better for Sean Dyche’s team, and he is one of their growing number of options.
Returning to the scene of the crime
Young has the same situation. A 38-year-old making his outfield debut for the Blues may not be expected to cover every blade of grass, but it would be reasonable to hope that he wouldn’t commit the same kind of careless mistakes that Dyche’s former Watford teammate did with his careless throw-in that resulted in a Villa goal back in August.
A left wing-back replacement for Vitalii Mykolenko in the second half, Young instead put on a performance that showed why he has been competing at the top of football for 20 years. Given his advanced age, Young unsurprisingly started this game on the bench after walking a disciplinary tightrope for 89 minutes at Brentford on Saturday after receiving an early booking.
Don’t go changing
From the moment the game began, Everton was ‘up for the cup’ and just want this more than Aston Villa, both on and off the field.
The 4,436-strong traveling support was behind the goal in both tiers of the North Stand and drowned out their hosts from the outset, as opposed to being tucked into the corner of the Doug Ellis Stand where they were placed for the Premier League thrashing here five weeks ago. A more lasting memory of the home supporters from this night will be the booing that erupted against their team when the halftime whistle blew, despite the fact that they momentarily rallied after a stunning stroke of luck allowed them to cut the Blues’ lead in half.
Such was their dominance, Dyche’s men really should have been more than just a single goal up and Villa’s supporters knew it. The Everton manager’s approach to the tie was in stark contrast to his predecessor Frank Lampard at the same stage of the competition last season.
Back then, the Londoner – who like this term had seen his side achieve a single-goal victory against lower division opposition in the previous round (a 1-0 win at Fleetwood Town) – chose to make an unprecedented 11 changes for the Blues trip to a fellow Premier League side. Not only did such a disrespectful and naïve move ensure he got his just deserts with a 4-1 spanking against Bournemouth’s second string but the result set the tone for the team’s return to the Vitality Stadium four days later as they suffered another 3-0 thrashing in what was their final pre-World Cup fixture.
The 7-1 “aggregate” scores proved to be the beginning of Lampard’s reign because he was unable to stop the alarming downward spiral that ensued once domestic action resumed, despite his claims that the first result would not have much of an impact on the second given the personnel differences. However, the seasoned manager Dyche showed much more tact, and despite making five changes, as did his counterpart Unai Emery, this was an Everton team that was out to win the game and build on their victory at Brentford in advance of Luton Town’s visit to Goodison Park.
The fact that the Blues boss was able to still call on the aforementioned Young, Dwight McNeil, Beto, Idrissa Gueye and Abdoulaye Doucoure off the bench was also testament to the genuine options he now has at his disposal. The reward was Everton’s first back-to-back away successes against top flight opposition since Roberto Martinez’s cavaliers triumphed 3-0 at Newcastle United and 3-1 at Fulham in March 2014.
Therefore, it was also their first victories of this nature during Farhad Moshiri’s ownership, a further indictment of his wasteful and disorderly administration. Curiously, they occurred in the club’s first two away games following the announcement that he had reached an agreement to sell all of his 94.1% ownership stake. How odd that it required a manager that the renegade majority shareholder didn’t even fancy to achieve such achievements after eight incumbents in the dugout in seven years.
