They cut a curious contrast at the end, the two former midfielders that England could not get to gel, meeting as managers for the first time. The smartly dressed Steven Gerrard celebrated Aston Villa’s first win of the season by grabbing his backroom staff in a show of unity, while Frank Lampard mooched on his own in baggy grey tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt. Gerrard’s side looked sharper and more stylish too.
The scoreline should not hide the size of the task Lampard faces. Everton’s cupboard is bare. Only when the visiting team introduced a forward, the 32-year-old free transfer, Salomon Rondón, was there potency.
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Gerrard had brokered peace with Tyrone Mings and if you were a defender who had been stripped of the club captaincy, a recall against a side as impotent as Everton was just what you would have wanted. The Villa manager insisted that he had no problems with the England man.
“I understand when you make a decision like that there will be noise but Tyrone is a fantastic footballer,” Gerrard said. “He played a really important part. We deserved to win.”
A goal in each half was enough for Villa, who have England forwards Danny Ings and Ollie Watkins fit and looking like game winners. Ings scored the first, the substitute Emiliano Buendía the second, with Watkins creating both.
“Ollie was outstanding,” Gerrard said. He most certainly was.
In contrast, Everton again looked to the 21-year-old winger Anthony Gordon to lead their line in the absence of the injured Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Mings manhandled Gordon throughout, setting his stall out in the third minute, grabbing the back of the makeshift forward and throwing him to the ground.
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That Everton could not make the ball stick in the absence of a recognised centre forward was best illustrated in Villa’s opening goal. Dwight McNeil was robbed too easily, halfway inside the home side’s half by John McGinn, and the ball was sent wide to a scampering Watkins.
That he was so wide proved problematic for James Tarkowski, the left-sided defender of a back three. His instincts, as a central defender, told him to stay narrow, tied to the corner of the area. It allowed Watkins to take four touches as he came inside, before striking a low cross that Ings took and spun past Abdoulaye Doucouré before crashing left-footed past Jordan Pickford.
When Buendía, the diminutive Argentinian, combined in a stirring move with Watkins and swept a low cross into the Everton goal with five minutes left, it appeared very much game over. Everton, though, stirred. Finally. Gordon went wide and started running at full backs instead of getting kicked by centre halves.
The substitute Amadou Onana — who had erred in Villa’s second — then produced a storming run and his cross hit the former Everton player Lucas Digne, under pressure from Alex Iwobi, and spun into the Villa goal. Lampard drew comfort from the effort at the game’s close.
“There was some good and bad in the performance,” he said. “We created four really good chances at the finish to draw it but the quicker we can get stability in the squad and the way we are playing, the better.”
Star man Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa).
Aston Villa (4-1-2-1-2): E Martinez 7 — M Cash 6 (E Konsa 90+4min), D Carlos 7 (C Chambers 90+5), T Mings 7, L Digne 6 — B Kamara 6 — J McGinn 7, J Ramsey 7 (A Young 90+4)— P Coutinho 5 (E Buendía 60) — D Ings 7 (L Bailey 78), O Watkins 8. Booked Coutinho, Digne, Ings, Young.
Everton (3-4-3): J Pickford 6 — M Holgate 6, C Coady 6 (D Alli 81), J Tarkowski 6 — N Patterson 6, A Doucouré 4 (T Davies 35, 6), A Iwobi 6, V Mykolenko 6 — D McNeil 5 (S Rondón 64, 6), A Gordon 6, D Gray 6 (A Onana 81). Booked Davies.
Referee M Oliver. Attendance 41,883.
