Frustrating Everton let toothless Spurs off the hook

North London has not been a happy hunting ground for Everton in the Premier League era… and that’s putting it lightly. The Toffees have won once on Arsenal’s home turf since 1996 and that was behind closed doors during the 2020/21 campaign. It took Everton until 2006 to win at White Hart Lane and since then they’ve won there just once when crowds were present. (That same “Covid season” was their only win away at Tottenham Hotspur since 2009.)

That miserable record was part of the context coming into this fixture, as was the fact that no Spurs team has played four matches to start a Premier League season without scoring. Everton ensured that history was made in that respect but you couldn’t shake the feeling that they could and should have done more to deepen the gloom surrounding Roberto De Zerbi’s team.

Having escaped relegation on the last day of last season — yes, thanks to Everton effectively failing to show up — and spent the best part of £400m on an array of talent over the summer, things were supposed to be different for Spurs in 2025/26.

They might eventually be so and the first quarter of an hour of this contest offered crumbs of comfort on that front for the home fans but the final whistle underscored that they’ve won just that one home game in the calendar year and they ended today’s match where they finished last season — in 17th place.

Everton, on the other hand, are unbeaten in all competitions and could, depending on results elsewhere tomorrow, remain in the top half of the table but the manager and the players might be ruing the fact that they’re not sitting in the top four.

This was, however, a very Moyesian away performance; a case of if you can’t win, just don’t lose and he will argue that a point on the road is always a good point. Particularly here.

Customarily, the Gaffer was reactive rather than proactive and prone to some slightly confusing decisions when it came to his second-half substitutions. Perhaps he feared the introduction of inspiration off the opposition bench but it never arrived. Spurs ended the game having had just two shots on target, only one of them meaningfully tested Jordan Pickford, while the visitors had a couple of gilt-edged opportunities to grab all the spoils.

Those first 15 minutes were survival football from Everton, though. Their hosts came out of the traps with intensity, determined to end their humiliating goal drought. When they were able to make inroads, sometimes through Everton simply giving the ball away frustratingly cheaply, they either came up against a stubborn green wall or failed to make the best of their openings.

Vitalii Mykolenko pulled off two excellent blocks in his penalty area following Thierno Barry’s sloppy lay-off, Jarrad Branthwaite repelled an effort from Matheus Fernandes and the same player was then muscled off the ball as he tried to do too much after being found all alone on the edge of the Toffees’ box by Jan Paul van Hecke. Van Hecke himself, meanwhile, skied a half-volley over at the back post after Harrison Armstrong had been adjudged to have chopped down Omar Marmoush in a dangerous area.

If this felt like the “shoe” of the home side dominating but not scoring the goal their early domination deserved being on the other “foot” for Everton, Moyes’s men didn’t really get the memo but they did eventually start to find their feet and, by the end of the first half, had had the game’s first shot on target.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles drilled a left-footer from a cleared corner wide and both Barry and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall saw efforts blocked midway through the half, but when the latter was grabbed and held by Fernandes not far outside the Tottenham box, James Garner despatched a direct free-kick that kicked up in front of Antonin Kinsky, prompting the keeper to push it wide of his left-hand post.

In between, Pickford had had to kick away Andrew Robertson’s cross and Sandro Tonali’s drive was deflected over the crossbar after Mykolenko had failed to properly clear his lines.

No doubt true to Moyes’s plan, Everton took greater control after half-time and began to make consistent inroads of their own. Terrific work by Tyrique George down the Blues’ left in the 50th minute ended with a teasing cross that Kinsky initially misjudged but then denied Barry’s far-post header when the ball bounced off his head.

A few minutes later, when a corner from the right dropped to George, he unleashed a controlled strike that was blocked on its way to goal by Rodrigo Bentancour before Dewsbury-Hall spurned Everton’s best chance to that point when he really should have punished Spurs for an awful giveaway.

Kinsky passed straight to him on the edge of the “D” but the goalie was close enough that he was able to charge down the shot, although Barry was a few yards to the left with his arms out-stretched begging for a square ball that would have given him a clear sight of the open goal.

An even better chance would fall Brennan Johnson’s way six minutes after that. What was, arguably, Everton’s best move of the match ended with Dewsbury-Hall cutting the ball across the box to the former Spurs winger arriving unmarked in a central position but he ballooned his shot over.

That would be his last touch, but with George having already departed the fray in favour of Jack Grealish, it was Hayden Hackney who was deployed on the right flank while Jake O’Brien reprised his right-back role when he replaced Maitland-Niles with 15 minutes to go.

The reshuffle stalled some of the momentum, though, and it was Spurs, with James Maddison and Mohammed Kudus on as substitutes, who almost grabbed the points at the death. Branthwaite had done well to get in the way of another Tonali shot and Archie Gray headed well over but when Pickford, whose kicking was abysmal for most of the match, gave the ball up with a horrendous pass up the middle, he atoned with a smart one-handed save to turn Lucas Bergvall’s rasping drive around his post.

Another lovely interchange at the other end between Grealish and Hackney presented Dewsbury-Hall with one last crack at goal but it took a nick off a defender and flew wide and that was pretty much it. No goals but another worthwhile point on the road.

Ultimately, once it became clear that Tottenham were going to have another of those days, this game really felt there for the taking for Everton if they could just grab the bull by the horns. Too often, though, they just lacked a consistent way of playing through the opposition and conviction in the final third when it really mattered.