A late Cenk Tosun goal spared Everton’s blushes against Tottenham.

Dele Alli broke the deadlock after Son Heung-min pounced on a back pass by Alex Iwobi to tee up the England international for his first away goal since January.

Son was dismissed later in the second half for a challenge on Andre Gomes which left the Blues midfielder stretchered off with a nasty-looking leg injury.

During 12 minutes of added time, Tosun ensured Marco Silva’s side took a point from the encounter when he converted a Lucas Digne cross from the right.

Here were the key talking points from Goodison Park:

Result irrelevant after Gomes horror

 

In the grander scheme, the game’s outcome felt largely immaterial for Everton.

Andre Gomes’ horrific leg break from Son Heung-min’s rash tackle in the 79th minute ensured that any autopsies were secondary for Marco Silva’s side.

Players from both sides appeared visibly distraught at seeing the Portuguese midfielder as he received medical treatment on the Goodison Park turf.

It was a cruel end to Gomes’ afternoon, and most likely the season, just weeks after coming back from a rib injury which had sidelined him for over a month.

Earlier, He had shown glimpses of the potential that Silva expected would soon flourish by switching the play for Lucas Digne to tee up Richarlison for a shot.

Unfortunately it looks like this will be the last Everton fans see of Gomes’ talent for some time, even if the prognosis of his injury is better than initially feared.

Delph shows benefits of change

 

Silva’s most staunch defenders argued that Everton’s current malaise had been caused by an inability to diversify his style due to mitigating circumstances.

For Tottenham’s visit, however, he finally changed things up.

An initial 4-3-3 formation quickly gave way to a 4-1-4-1 approach with Fabian Delph taking up a holding position at the base of the hosts’ midfield.

The former Manchester City veteran’s wealth of experience became evident as he was able to stop the visitors in their tracks routinely throughout the first half.

Granted it is would be premature to rank him alongside Everton’s most successful water-carrier but the pair arrived at Goodison with similar backstories.

If Delph can produce more displays like this on a consistent basis, flattering parallels with Peter Reid might not actually be that wide of the mark.

Atkinson has another stinker

 

Goodison was never going to give Martin Atkinson the warmest of receptions.

Any referee that wrongly sends off an Everton player in a Merseyside derby invariably has their card marked whenever they return to the scene of the crime.

But the West Yorkshire official stoked the fires further with an abject display in the first half that overlooked several clear fouls on the hosts.

In a matter of minutes, Davinson Sanchez pulled down Richarlison and elbowed Gomes in the ribs. On both occasions, Atkinson waved away the protests.

Little wonder, then, that Evertonians let him know in no uncertain terms what they really felt about his performance as he left off the pitch during the interval.

Matters did not improve after the break, not least with his initial decision to issue Son with a yellow card for his fatal challenge on Gomes, 11 minutes from time.

On a weekend where he had already irked one half of Merseyside for making incorrect calls, Atkinson completed the set by riling the Grand Old Lady too.

Richarlison needs to wise up

 

Wrong as many of Atkinson’s calls proved, Richarlison did not help his own case.

The Brazil international went to ground far too often in this game and validated large parts of the controversial refereeing decisions which went against his side.

Wising up to cynical challenges is clearly one aspect of Richarlison’s overall game play which needs refinement but there are other areas in need of improvement.

He should have tested Paulo Gazzaniga far more than a handful of tame attempts. Tottenham’s understudy goalkeeper was rarely troubled, if at all.

The Gwladys Street still reveres him as ‘brilliant’, give or take an expletive, yet Richarlison must improve his all-round attributes if he is to live up to the hype.