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Everton 2022-23 Season Review: Best Five Games
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In a very tense and difficult season there were just a few shining moments
Picking the best five games of Everton’s 2022-23 season is not that difficult – they only won nine of their 41 games in all competitions.
That a 1-0 EFL Cup win over Fleetwood was briefly considered to make the cut shows just how grim the last nine months have been.
There have been some shafts of light amongst the gloom however. And after the season had an ultimately happy ending, lets hope there will be far more victories to choose from next year.
5) Everton 3-0 Crystal Palace, 22 October
Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images
Everton’s most comfortable home win of the season, the result was never really in doubt once Dominic Calvert-Lewin had fired the Toffees in front after 11 minutes.
Further goals from Anthony Gordon and Dwight McNeil wrapped up the victory in the second half, ending a run of three straight defeats and lifting the Toffees up to 11th in the table.
However, the manner of the result perhaps lulled us into a false sense of security, that the team was making progress under Frank Lampard and that we would not endure another relegation-threatened season.
How wrong we were.
4) Everton 1-0 Arsenal, 4 February
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After the Crystal Palace game Everton lost eight of their next 10 matches, drawing another two, to sink to 19th in the table, level on points with bottom club Southampton.
A defeat at West Ham finally led to the dismissal of Lampard and the appointment of Sean Dyche, whose first game was against an Arsenal side unbeaten in 13 Premier League matches and looking to give Manchester City a run for the Premier League title.
A much more aggressive and defensively resilient Toffees side hustled, harried and snapped into the tackles. James Tarkowski then rose highest from Dwight McNeil’s corner to seal Everton’s first win in four months.
3) Everton 1-0 Leeds, 17 February
Photo by Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images
Given Everton went into the final day just two points ahead of Leeds, February’s 1-0 win over the Whites has to go down as one of the most crucial results of the campaign. Seamus Coleman came up trumps with a goal of the season contender, catching goalkeeper Illan Meslier out with a first-time shot from a tight angle (no, it wasn’t a fluke, honest).
2) Everton 1-0 Bournemouth, 28 May
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A match no Evertonian will ever forget.
Bournemouth 2023 will go down in history alongside Wimbledon 1994 and Coventry 1998 as the Toffees scrambled their way to survival on a nerve-shredding final day at a thunderous Goodison Park. The fans once again brought their A-game and the players responded to haul themselves over the line thanks to Abdoulaye Doucoure’s rocket.
1) Brighton 1-5 Everton, 8 May
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Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville labelled it his shock of the season and a “seismic’ moment in the relegation battle. It is hard to disagree.
Everton’s 5-1 thrashing of Brighton was as vital as it was unexpected.
It was pretty much the perfect counter-attacking display as the Toffees soaked up Brighton pressure before hitting them with a succession of lightning counter-attacks. Doubles for Doucoure and McNeil along with a Jason Steele own goal completed a thumping win over a Europa League-chasing Seagulls side enjoying one of their best-ever seasons.
With Leicester losing at Fulham earlier in the day the victory was enough for the Toffees to leapfrog the Foxes and escape the bottom three. They would never again drop into it.
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