Liverpool humiliation, new points deduction - Everton highs, lows and moment of 'pure' joy

Another tumultuous campaign at Goodison Park has come to an end and members of the ECHO sportsdesk are offering their thoughts on proceedings with a review of Everton’s season.

A two-part special sees Chris Beesley (CB), Matt Jones (MJ) and Joe Thomas (JT) give their conclusions on the Blues’ offerings from 2023/24. Here’s the first instalment…

What was your highpoint of Everton’s season?

CB: Thankfully there were a few more than the previous couple of years but it might have been easier for all of us if they’d have been spread out a bit more evenly rather than bunched up in clusters. There was the four-game winning streak in December soon after the first points deduction, that hat-trick of victories in London in the autumn and another early highlight was the Carabao Cup success at Villa Park where Everton had been thrashed 4-0 just five weeks earlier.

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However, it has to be the week that produced a hat-trick of wins at Goodison Park to secure the Blues’ top-flight status in a season where it seemed the world (or the Premier League at least) was against them. My old friend Dr David France came over from Arizona to witness all three matches and record what has proven to be a terrifically well-received episode of Goodison Park: My Home, so I was made up for him too.

Regardless of the vagaries of form or the realities that Liverpool have far greater resources and are a much better-run club, the Merseyside Derby had become a disgustingly one-sided fixture in recent years and an Everton win at Goodison was long overdue. When it finally came, it was comfortable and showed the Grand Old Lady at her finest, ensuring even Jurgen Klopp could just stand there with a wry smile when Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s header went in.

MJ: The Merseyside derby is impossible to top this season. As much as the chants about losing the league at Goodison Park will be frequently reeled out when our red neighbours come to town, the night was all about Everton.

It showed what a force of nature Goodison can be when it is at its ferocious best and crucially, gave Sean Dyche a blueprint on how to tackle these types of matches at home. With a compact structure, a clear defensive focus but with aggression laced into every aspect of their play.

Sitting in the Gwladys Street, the sight of Dominic Calvert-Lewin soaring to meet Dwight McNeil's cross will never be erased from my mind's eye. Knowing exactly where the ball was going and the chaos that was going to ensue in the seconds afterwards was blissful.

Hopefully Goodison gets another night or two like that in its final year. Even so, that 2-0 victory will be tough to top. After 14 years without a win over the Reds in front of fans, it was a truly moving experience.

JT: The only answer to this can be the derby. It was Goodison at its fiercest best and a result and display that was so intense and aggressive and hostile that it symbolised everything the Grand Old Lady can be. Trying to write about that match while it was coming to an end was terrifying because I knew the significance of the result and the impossibility of doing it justice with my words.

My favourite part of that win was that it was deserved. It was not a backs to the wall, smash and grab. Everton seized those three points. I have feared for a while that Goodison would not get a big, special night during its final years. Hopefully there will be more but if that is THE one then it will be a fitting tribute to the place.

Beyond that, another night that I took great pleasure from was the humbling of Newcastle United. Their win at Goodison last season was so humiliating and led to me seriously thinking Everton might actually get relegated for the first time amid all that was going on. To hammer them this season felt like closure and Beto's sublime goal to finish it off was a real highlight.

What was your lowpoint of Everton's season?

CB: You could identify the initial 10-point deduction in November, which ridiculously was the most-severe sporting sanction in 135 years of English top-flight football at the time for a single PSR rule breach. But from a football point of view it would obviously be the 6-0 hammering at Chelsea, not just for the game itself but for the panic that it caused among sections of the fanbase. Everton’s record-breaking 13-game winless run in the Premier League was a bit weird in that while pressure inevitably built with every match that went by without victory - like Calvert-Lewin with his goalless streak - I didn’t think the team were actually awful during this time and it felt very different for me than the ‘end of days’ slumps that resulted in Rafael Benitez and Frank Lampard being sacked.

The last game of that sequence, as the Blues snatched a late point at Newcastle United as their number nine ended his drought from the penalty spot, proved the darkest hour is the one before dawn as they went on to beat Burnley the following Saturday but then some supporters’ heads fell off because of the debacle at Stamford Bridge. It was a bad day at the office, no doubt, even shambolic as the visitors tactics were emphatically exploited, but claims that Sean Dyche had lost the dressing room and that the team were no longer playing for him, thankfully proved very much wide of the mark.

MJ: Probably when the second PSR breach was reported. At that stage the club still had a 10-point deduction and were still mired in relegation trouble. With the takeover stalling, the accounts looming and the team finding wins hard to come by, it was a brutal blow.

It was the first time in a long time that I'd felt truly trapped as an Evertonian. There didn't appear to be any way out of the doom cycle for the Blues. Dyche and the players were temporarily able to stop the spin late in the campaign and while things are not quite as doom and gloom as they were, the path back to being a solid and self-sustaining top-flight football club still feels like a treacherous one.

On the pitch? The 6-0 at Chelsea was a nadir. It's remarkable the coaching staff and players were able to turn things around so quickly and dramatically after that.

JT: The stoppage-time defeat to West Ham United. There was, of course, the points deductions but they still have a surreal feel to me, if I am honest. They spark outrage and confusion but the first one also felt like a provocation too far and the players and supporters rallied brilliantly. And there was that miserable night at Stamford Bridge, but I think I covered up the trauma of that in my mind. That home game to West Ham was the really horrible one - because it felt like something better was there for Everton and the inability to snatch it started to feel supernaturally bad.

It came amid that awful winless run and it felt so much worse because Everton actually played well for much of that game. They finally got a penalty. And missed it. A striker finally scored a goal. And it was worthless. Another opposition keeper put in a stunning display at Goodison and then there were those two late goals that turned a frustrating draw into a damaging defeat. At that point I started to feel as though nothing would ever go right for Everton.

What was your Everton goal of the season?

CB: Ones that stand out from the campaign for me include Jack Harrison’s delicately-placed long-range effort on his first Premier League start against Bournemouth, Beto’s first Premier League goal to seal the 3-0 win over Newcastle after 29 passes, Jarrad Branthwaite curling one in from the edge of the area like a top striker at Brighton and of course Calvert-Lewin’s ‘Duncan Ferguson’ style header in front of the Gwladys Street against Liverpool. However, in terms of my favourite I’m picking Idrissa Gueye’s late winner at Crystal Palace, a game in which Everton were pegged back twice but recovered to secure a 3-2 victory in what was their third success in London of the autumn following triumphs at Brentford and West Ham.

As well as that dramatic backdrop to the goal, it was as impressive as it was unexpected. Unlike his recent purple patch, the Senegalese international hadn’t netted since coming back to the club over 14 months earlier and he’d been on the bench at Selhurst Park in the first half but came on, played a clever, delayed one-two with Abdoulaye Doucoure and then raced into the box to beat the keeper at full stretch.

MJ: Calvert-Lewin's against Liverpool is obviously my favourite, but the best has to be Branthwaite's at Brighton.

Perfect touch and a gorgeous finish from a truly wonderful player. More on him shortly...

JT: Lewis Dobbin against Chelsea for me. It came during that brilliant run after the points deduction when it felt like Everton had awoken and no-one could stop them. I liked that Chelsea win so much because it felt like the first win in years that had been achieved by a club that had found that winning feeling and had become addicted to it. Three points achieved for the sake of winning, not because they were a desperate necessity.

To achieve it with an academy player getting his first senior goal was special. And I loved the celebrations. They were so pure. Dobbin was so overwhelmed, every player then joined him, and the stadium did the same. It was great shared moment and was football at its best.