Everton look like they have direction while West Ham merely look stagnant

Everton and West Ham went into their game with just seven goals between them, but while Frank Lampard has a plan the Hammers seem out of ideas.

It says something for how this season has gone for both clubs that Everton and West Ham went into their Premier League match at Goodison Park having scored almost 50 per cent fewer goals between them than bottom of the table Leicester City. These two clubs have arrived at their current attacking options by very different routes. Everton lost their attacking talismans in the summer to the transfer market and injury. West Ham’s five attacking players have scored one goal between them.

September has seen a small uptick in both teams’ positions. Everton went into the game without a win, but their goalless draw against Liverpool was at least shot through with grit and determination. West Ham only had one win themselves in the Premier League, but the Europa Conference League has brought them four more. After taking four points from Aston Villa and Spurs, there was no disgrace in losing to Chelsea with two minutes to play, yet another example of a lower-placed side taking the lead against wealthier opposition and then failing to hold onto it.

And both teams arrived at this pre-international break clash on something of a knife-edge. Victory for either would lift them comfortably clear of the relegation places and towards the middle of the table. Defeat would mean an extended period of soul-searching and the possibility that the losing manager may no longer be in employment by the time the teams re-emerge in the Premier League again afterwards starts to increase. Everton and Frank Lampard can at least now try and enjoy the break.

The afternoon began with something of a precursor to what would follow, with the managers accidentally leading each others’ teams out onto the pitch for the pre-match royal tributes. Both teams spent the first half demonstrating precisely why they are 17th and 18th in the Premier League with Jamie Carragher in the Sky commentary box bemoaning the ‘lack of quality’ on display.

There was a lot of running around, a lot of solid tackling, and there were even occasional flashes of coordinated and fluid attacking play, but then a final ball would go awry, or a shot be too tame, or a sub-optimal decision made. Goalless at half-time in a match between two teams who’d scored seven goals and recorded one win between them – 1-0, of course – in their previous twelve games combined. Who…