Chaotic Everton set unwanted Premier League record with Bournemouth collapse

Dom Farrell

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Chaotic Everton set unwanted Premier League record with Bournemouth collapse image

After successive battles against relegation over recent seasons, Everton’s 2024/25 campaign is already lurching close to crisis.

Sean Dyche’s side were beaten by Brighton and Tottenham in their first two games, conceding seven times without finding the net themselves.

The Toffees enjoyed a restorative 3-0 Carabao Cup win over Doncaster Rovers in midweek and finally looked to be turning a corner as Michael Keane and Dominic Calvert-Lewin established a 2-0 lead against Bournemouth at Goodison Park on Saturday.

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It remained that way until the 87th minute, at which point Merseyside witnessed an unravelling like no other in Premier League history.

Antoine Semenyo pulled a goal back for Bournemouth before Lewis Cook and Luis Sinisterra capitalised on Everton falling apart completely in stoppage time.

After the match, Opta confirmed that Everton had become the first Premier League team ever to lose a match they were leading by a two-goal margin with so little time left to play.

What did Sean Dyche say about Everton’s loss to Bournemouth?

“They score, I think, with only their second shot on target and then just not doing the basics, the ugly side of the game, and we'd done that all day [cost us]," Dyche told Everton's official website.

“I always say to them, a basic requirement is win your tackles, win your headers, win your races. We didn't do any. All they did was chip it forward all day, and they chipped it forward again and again, and we dealt with it all day, until the final moments when everyone's waiting for someone else to deal with it.

“It's not, by the way, just the defensive unit, that's higher up the pitch. People can get after it, go and press, kill the game, we didn't do that. Therefore, we got hurt from not doing the absolute basics and the ugly hard yards cycle."

Dyche added: “You're looking at the game and, as I just explained to them, when you see the goals back, look at your body language. Not good enough, simple as that. You've done your job, you've seen the game through, but the job's never done until the final whistle.

“We've got players overlapping in the last minute of the game and you go, ‘Why?’ You don't need to do that, you just stay organised and we see the game through, you've played really well.”

Dom Farrell

Dom Farrell Photo

Dom is the senior content producer for Sporting News UK. He previously worked as fan brands editor for Manchester City at Reach Plc. Prior to that, he built more than a decade of experience in the sports journalism industry, primarily for the Stats Perform and Press Association news agencies. Dom has covered major football events on location, including the entirety of Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup in Paris and St Petersburg respectively, along with numerous high-profile Premier League, Champions League and England international matches. Cricket and boxing are his other major sporting passions and he has covered the likes of Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury, Wladimir Klitschko, Gennadiy Golovkin and Vasyl Lomachenko live from ringside.