. The Everton manager was left in no doubt as to the growing discontent inside Goodison Park after Brentford held out for 53 minutes with 10 men to take their first Premier League away point of the season. They did so with relatively little trouble, which said everything about Everton’s second half display.
The Brentford captain, Christian Nørgaard ,was shown a straight red card for imprinting his studs into Jordan Pickford’s knee four minutes before the interval. Everton had started brightly against the 11 men of Brentford but became increasingly clueless as the contest wore on. It is now five draws in eight league games for Dyche’s team and no goals in three outings. An ominous December – which includes games against all of the top four, Ruben Amorim’s first home league game as Manchester United manager, a revitalised Wolves and Nottingham Forest – now awaits.
Brentford had 16 points before kick-off – each one won at the Gtech Stadium. Their impressive home form is in stark contrast to results on the road, where they have faced a testing away schedule in fairness, and Thomas Frank’s team were immediately on the back foot at Goodison. Everton had enough pressure and opportunity to establish a comfortable interval lead. Not for the first time in Dyche’s reign, a lack of ruthlessness and quality in the final third prevented them from doing so. Mark Flekken in the Brentford goal proved another obstacle.
Flekken produced a superb reflex save to prevent Dominic Calvert-Lewin giving Everton an early lead when flicking Idrissa Gueye’s low volley towards the bottom corner. Iliman Ndiaye had already gone close with an angled shot that was deflected over and soon instigated a counter-attack that ended with Flekken saving comfortably from Calvert-Lewin. Dwight McNeil put three shots wide of the Brentford goalkeeper’s left hand post before the break, the final effort …
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