Everton 2-2 Tottenham Hotspur (3 Feb, 2024) Game Analysis

Jarrad Branthwaite equalized in the 94th minute as relegation-threatened Everton rescued a point against Tottenham with a 2-2 draw on Saturday as Sean Dyche's side moved out of the bottom three of the Premier League table.

Richarlison, once the darling of Goodison Park, scored twice in the first half and looked to have won the game for the visitors, but Branthwaite headed in at the far post after Everton had troubled Spurs all game with their set pieces.

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Jack Harrison also scored for Everton and after Spurs failed to kill the game in the second half, the struggling Merseyside club still had hopes they could get something out of the game.

Spurs are fourth in the table with 44 points from 23 games, missing the chance to move closer to second-placed Manchester City despite having played two games more. Everton have 19 points from their 23 games.

“I'm quite disappointed, especially to have conceded so late,” said Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou. “I thought we had chances to kill them in the second half, we knew they would throw a lot of balls in the box and we had to deal with a lot of things.

“It looked like the refereeing was going to drop everything and let VAR pick up the leftovers and for us, nothing happened in that sense.”

Everton fans protested against the Premier League and held up yellow placards reading 'You don't know what you're doing' in reference to the Merseyside club's 10-point deduction for alleged breach of profit rules and sustainability.

Their appeal against this sanction took place this week and the verdict is expected to be delivered in mid-February.

Tottenham led early through Richarlison. Spurs moved the ball well down the left side and Destiny Udogie's pass was palmed away by the unmarked Brazil international.

Harrison equalized rather unintentionally on the half hour mark as a corner was received at the far post by James Tarkowski and his header into the penalty area was headed towards goal by Dominic Calvert-Lewin and it went in by Harrison.

Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario felt he was fouled by Harrison as the corner came in, but a VAR check allowed the goal.

The visitors were back in front four minutes before half-time as they broke quickly and on James Maddison's flick, Richarlison placed an excellent shot beyond his former teammate Jordan Pickford to score his ninth Premier goal League in eight games.

Everton remained a threat from set-pieces and got their reward as Christian Romero's attempted clearance from a free-kick was only headed into the path of Branthwaite, who beat a flustered Vicario.

“It’s a major problem, we’ve been through a tough time recently,” Branthwaite told the BBC. “We took our chance, obviously a little disappointed with the goals we conceded but it’s a good point and it shows the fight we have as a team.

“We worked by putting pressure on the goalkeeper [at set-pieces] all week and it worked well.”