Burnley huffed, and they puffed, but the House of Everton would not fall. And so the Grim Reaper shuffles closer.
Scott Parker will be relieved his side took a point but knows it should have been more. Armando Broja, Jacob Bruun Larsen, Bashir Humphreys, and Zian Flemming all left fans aghast with their seeming aversion to finding the net.
After 10 points in their first nine games, that’s two from their next nine. Is this Wolves cloaked in claret? Perhaps. And yet, with some tactical innovation and lashings of flair, you saw hope for this Burnley side, signs that Parker can bridge the six-point gap to Nottingham Forest.
They were the better side against a depleted Everton, for whom Tyler Dibling showed swagger but ran out of steam. They were clapped off, this time, not booed. But a quarter of a season without a win is not good enough and they desperately need to add some cutting-edge in January.
Burnley were much better against Everton but again were consigned to a ninth winless game
Dibling’s show of promise
Dibling was Everton’s most effervescent player and looked like the £42million star Everton signed in summer.
The fact he has had to wait this long for just a second league start has been puzzling but, capitalising on the absence of AFCON star Iliman Ndiaye, the 19-year-old played with plenty of panache.
He was unlucky not to give Everton the lead with two chances in the first half and had Lucas Pires on toast so much that, at times, Burnley doubled up on him to try and stop his chicanery.
His second half was more muted and only punctuated by a yellow card for a shameless, cynical pull on Jaidon Anthony to stop a burgeoning attack.
Tyler Dibling was Everton’s most exciting player on his second league start of the season
Everton must invest
The Toffees initially looked lost without the attacking threat of Jack Grealish (virus), Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (thigh injury), and Ndiaye (at AFCON). Indeed, they finished the first half with an xG of 0.13 – good enough for a goal every four games.
Charly Alcaraz really took ownership of the number 10 role, launching counter-attacks and arriving late in the box to test Martin Dubravka. On the left, Dwight McNeil performed credibly.
But for the third game in a row they finished goalless and if Everton want to push for European football, they should invest in their squad depth in January.
Everton missed their first string of attacking options but Charly Alcaraz was encouraging
Burnley’s new formation
Scott Parker may have stumbled upon the formation that gives Burnley a shot of survival.
He has rammed his Clarets into all sorts of systems throughout their winless run but this iteration, a 3-4-3 applied with fluidity and aggression and dashes of one-touch football, often left Everton bamboozled and raised appreciative roars from the stands.
Armando Broja had plenty of service from two wingers and a duo of wing-backs, while even the centre-halves were overlapping at times to give Burnley untold levels of width.
A liquid backline – switching between two or three men in possession and four or five on the defence – gave the hosts a shape to suit any occasion.
The main thing that will blight them are their mistakes. Inexplicable errors saw them punished against Bournemouth, Fulham, Newcastle, and Brentford, and they were lucky Everton didn’t do more damage here after a spate of pedestrian passes.
Burnley’s new system produced fruit but they made silly errors and lacked cutting edge
Marcus Edwards’s pantomime performance
Marcus Edwards – once tipped for an England call-up by Ruben Amorim at Sporting Lisbon – was part-hero, part-villain on his first league start of the season.
Every time he got on the ball, you knew something was going to happen. But even he didn’t have the foggiest idea what.
He was the sparkplug for a lot of attacks but often ran into a cul-de-sac, misplaced an ambitious pass, or dithered too long and lost it, inciting a melee of expletives and flying arms from the home faithful.
But Parker should stick with him because, at his best, he’s their most talented star. Nobody got fans on their feet more. One dinked pass to set up Bruun Larsen left the stadium breathless. He reminded you of Adel Taarabt at QPR.
