Match Review – Everton 2-0 Brighton
Oh Anthony, Anthony, Anthony. What were you thinking? We’ve seen some stupid red cards in our time, but trying to cut Leighton Baines into pieces was one of the worst in recent memory. The most worrying thing is, it was so predictable.
Anthony Knockaert has cut a frustrated figure so far this season. He was rumoured to have been dropped from the squads against Huddersfield and Chelsea and one of his toys was last seen flying past Jupiter after he’d launched it out of the pram on being subbed in last weeks win over Arsenal. This was a new level of frustration though as he put in a horror tackle to earn himself and early bath and a three game ban. Nice one Anthony, not like we’ve got an FA Cup Quarter Final and our two most winnable home games coming up or anything.
The reaction has varied from turning a blind eye because he was quite good last season to demanding a set of gallows be constructed at the Clock Tower and the return of capital punishment. Knockaert is clearly struggling not only with the terrible grief he has had in his personal life, but also the fact that is no longer the main man.
Last season he was the centre of attention, scoring goals, winning awards and having 30,000 people worshipping at his feet. This year, nobody is talking about him. It’s all Lewis Dunk’s big money move, Maty Ryan’s saves, Glenn Murray for England or Jose Izquierdo’s spectacular goals. Knockaert is something of an afterthought and it clearly doesn’t sit well with him.
Given what a class man manager Chris Hughton is, you’d back him to know how to coax Knockaert back to form, to sort out his head and get his attitude right. Getting rid of a player we all sung the praises of for his raw emotion and passion because he is too passionate and too emotional is madness, despite what a sizeable number of our supporters were saying on Saturday. He’ll learn from this and come back.
Knockaert’s indiscipline wasn’t the only negative from the 2-0 defeat at Everton. The two full backs had their poorest game in some time with Gaetan Bong scoring an own goal and Ezequiel Schelotto looking like a fish out of water. And if anybody doubted the importance of Dale Stephens to the Albion, then Wayne Rooney’s performance highlighted just how important the absent midfielder was. Rooney was superb, dictating the play from deep and never giving the ball away (hey hey hey) but it made you wonder if he’d have been able to run things so much with Stephens in there snapping at his heels rather than Beram Kayal.
Rooney’s performance really did deserve a goal and he was only denied one by a quite brilliant penalty save from Maty Ryan, one of the few highlights of the day. More concerning was what was going on at the other end; this result making it only seven goals scored on the road so far this season for the Albion, and three of those came in one match.
We never looked like netting here and it was frustrating that Hughton resorted back to his stopwatch timing of substitutions with Jurgen Locadia introduced on 69 and Leonardo Ulloa on 77. Quite what impact the Man from Argentina was meat to have in 13 minutes at 2-0 is anyone’s guess, let alone before Knockaert’s moment of madness.
We’ll file this one under bad day at the office and move on. Six points still required to survive and an FA Cup Quarter Final up next. One swallow does not make a summer, one setback at Everton does make a season and one moment of madness does not ruin Anthony Knockaert’s Albion career. Let’s have some perspective.
