2 April 10, 2022The Sunday Times 2GSFootball Premier League
every inch a relegation side. They
were playing football tailor-made for
the Championship — and not the top
end of the Championship — punting
hopeful balls at Dominic Calvert-Le-
win’s head, which kept getting gob-
bled up by Maguire, and playing hur-
ried passes straight to the feet of
opponents.
Growls of frustration swelled in
Goodison Park’s stands, but there is
no team worse at taking advantage of
good situations than the present
United one. Through thoughtlessness
and careless touches of their own,
they wasted a succession of promising
attacking positions and conjured only
two proper chances, which both fell
to Marcus Rashford.unlike his team-mates. Things like,
you know, winning challenges in the
opposition area — “This is what other
teams do in the Premier League.”
Rangnick increasingly resembles a
weary babysitter who can’t wait to
hand the brats back to the parents and
has realised that however good the
pay seemed, even double would have
not been enough. With this result his
remaining hope of salvaging some-
thing from his interim period — Euro-
pean qualification — has probably
gone. It left United on course for their
lowest points total — 62 — in Premier
League history.
Yet initially, it was not how the day
looked like going. For 25 minutes,
United were OK and Everton lookedT
his game had none of the
beauty, the science, the
subtlety we will see when
Manchester City meet Liver-
pool today but an Everton
fan would simply reply with
a quote from their anthem:
“What the f**k do we care?”
Their grand old team rose from the
floor and landed a precious blow in
the fight to stay in the Premier League,
compensating for lack of quality with
intensity and dearth of composure
with desire.
It was all too much for spiritless,
gutless, directionless Manchester
United. Nervy and crude as their foot-
ball was, Everton were still a team, still
a group of athletes demonstrating
professional pride — and neither of
those things could be said about the
opposition. United, said David de Gea,
were “a disgrace” and Ralf Rangnick
agreed with his goalkeeper that their
supporters deserve more.
Ever been to a party in a bearpit?
Full time witnessed one. As Jon Moss
blew the whistle after five minutes of
stoppage time, Everton players slid on
their backs, punched the air and
pointed at the sky while Frank Lam-
pard bellowed relief and the ancient
stadium trembled and rattled in cele-
bration.
It was a 1-0 victory hewn from just
32 per cent possession and a deflected
goal, but priceless, and the scorer,
young Anthony Gordon, 21, further
cemented his terrace hero status.
Other standouts were Fabian Delph
and Allan, who brought a gnarled
competitiveness to Everton’s mid-
field, and Alex Iwobi, who buzzed withseemingly boundless energy. Also Jor-
dan Pickford, who made important
saves, including from Cristiano
Ronaldo in stoppage time. Ronaldo?
The 37-year-old, across a career span-
ning more than 1,100 senior games,
can have never played worse.
Merseyside is often an unhappy
place for vaunted visiting strikers.
There is a remarkable statistic that in a
combined 37 visits to Anfield and
Goodison, Ronaldo, Sergio Agüero
and Thierry Henry total one goal
between them. But history was no
excuse for Ronaldo’s lack of competi-
tiveness. Rangnick ended up playing
Harry Maguire as a false nine and
observed that at least Maguire man-
aged to win a header in Everton’s box,EVERTON
REVEL IN
GORDON’S
DEFLECTED
GLORY
TONY MCARDLE
MATCH
OF THE
DAY10
EVERTON MAN UTD
Gordon 27JONATHAN
NORTHCROFTFootball Correspondent
at Goodison ParkGordon
celebrates his
goal with
Iwobi that
gave Everton
a crucial win
in the fight for
survivalErik ten Hag would like to bring
Robin van Persie back to
Manchester United as one of his
assistant coaches (Jonathan
Northcroft writes).
Van Persie, 38, has begun his
coaching career at Feyenoord,
and has been sounded out about
joining Ten Hag’s staff. However,
he has family in the Netherlands
and is thought to be torn over any
Old Trafford job offer.
Other candidates include
Steve McClaren and Mitchell van
der Gaag, his current No 2 at Ajax.TEN HAG WANTS VAN PERSIE