Eze is good.

Eze is good.

Eberichi Eze is good.

The latest off the Crystal Palace production line of tricky forwards gave Everton all sorts of problems at Selhurst Park. However, this incarnation of the Toffees don’t get chewed up so easily, and ran out winners thanks to a late goal from that most unlikely of sources, the cool as fuck Idrissa Gana Gueye.

Initially it looked like it might be an easy day for the Blues, when the Vitaliy Mykolenko, who seems to have transformed into Rivellino, opened the scoring within a minute. He initially attempted a shot with the right foot that found the net against Brighton last week – a bigger swinger than Neil and Christina Hamilton – only for it to be blocked and make its way to Jack Harrison. The over-groomed winger chipped over a perfect cross for the Ukrainian to follow in and head home from close range before Roy Hodgson could even arrange the blanket on his knees.

Within five minutes though, the Eze show got underway, as he powered into the box and threw himself over Jarrad Branthwaite’s tentative challenge. He then converted the penalty himself, doing one of them weird Ivan Toney ones that leave the keeper rooted to the spot. 

The England midfielder then made Amadou look like a right Onana out on the touchline before tumbling to the turf again. This time he received a yellow card for his troubles, despite Branthwaite catching his trailing foot.

You could see either incident result in a penalty or two yellow cards and you wouldn’t be surprised either way. ‘Contact’ doesn’t necessarily equate to a foul though. And nobody ‘has a right’ to go down. You go down if the force of the challenge knocks you down. If you throw yourself to the floor – regardless of whether you were fouled or not – your are ‘simulating’. Or, more bluntly, cheating. 

They all do it like. Constantly. But it’s insidious how the vocabulary of the game is reshaping it for the worse.

Sean Dyche – that old rugged boss – introduced Gueye at half-time, replacing Onana who was having one of those games. 

On a side note, talking of midfielders, how weird are those stories about Dyche’s chats with Dele Alli at the training ground? The troubled Tottenham man isn’t ‘out on the grass’ yet, but it sounds like he just hangs around, doing his own thing, flitting in and out enigmatically, like Willie Wonka, sharing ‘footballing insights’ and ‘buying into’ things. Nice work if you can get it.

Anyway, Gueye was involved in the action immediately, teeing up Mykolenko for another great volley – reminiscent of the one he scored at Leicester – but this came straight back off the post. Abdoulaye Doucoure was first to react though, steering the ball into the unguarded net to restore the lead. 

In fairness to Palace, they increased the pressure throughout the half, but still it took an uncharacteristic James Tarkowski error to gift them the equaliser with quarter of an hour remaining. 

Expecting Jordan Pickford to come for the ball, Tarkowski got confused and hesitated – like when you go to say the word ‘chipotle’ – ducking under a high ball and allowing Odsonne Edouard to stab it home. 

With Beto on for Dominic Calvert-Lewin though, Everton took the game back to Palace, culminating in Gueye’s goal on 86 minutes. He fed the ball inside to Doucoure and then went ‘all PSG’, continuing into the box, receiving a superb return pass and then stretching to tuck his shot into the bottom corner. 

The Everton players, including the substitutes, looked as delighted as the supporters, with the goal and with the scorer. He’s a cracking little player. Not as athletic as he once was – which was freakish anyway – but nowhere near as lacking as the accepted wisdom. 

It was a brilliant result, and just further testimony to the job that Dyche is doing. The fact that there are grumbles about the ‘quality of the football’ is a luxury afforded by the results that have been earned through sheer hard work. Again, to labour the point, the thing the supporters say is ‘all we want to see’ whenever it’s lacking. 

This whole squad was written off as a load of shitbag bottlers a year ago, when they were failing to live up to the ‘standards’ of the utterly out-of-his-depth Frank Lampard. Now look at them. 

It could be worse though, you could be one of those Newcastle supporters expecting an apology because they lost a game. 

‘But we’ve travelled all this way!’ 

No one forced you mate, do you want a fucking medal, is what Kieran Trippier was clearly dying to say. 

Newcastle supporters!