Bournemouth 1-1 Everton: Tarkowski levels in stoppage time

Bournemouth were sixty seconds from three points at the Vitality Stadium and did not get them. James Tarkowski met a corner in the first minute of stoppage time and Everton left the south coast with a draw that had looked unlikely for the best part of an hour.

How the two sides arrived

Bournemouth had lost 2-1 at Manchester City on the opening weekend, and lost it late: they led from the twenty-sixth minute and conceded twice in the final six. That context matters here, because the way this game ended was not a new experience.

Everton had beaten Crystal Palace 2-0 at Goodison, a clean and unfussy start that told you more about their defending than their attacking. They arrived with three points and a plan built on not conceding.

The opening goal

Alex Scott put the home side in front on 41 minutes, finishing right-footed into the bottom left corner from the centre of the box after Evanilson had released him on a fast break. It was the reward for a first half in which Bournemouth had both the ball and, more usefully, space to run into behind an Everton line that had pushed up.

The second half followed a different script. Everton became more direct without creating anything clean, and Bournemouth spent long spells in promising areas without turning ten corners into a second goal. That number — ten corners, no goals from them — is the one the home staff will look at first.

The last minute

The equaliser arrived the way late equalisers usually do: from a set piece, and from a centre-back. Tarkowski met the corner and finished right-footed from the right side of the box into the middle of the goal, with the clock past ninety.

There was no time for a response. Bournemouth had spent the previous ten minutes trying to see the game out rather than extend it, and the switch from one intention to the other is rarely made quickly.

The numbers

Bournemouth finished with 58.5% of the ball, seventeen shots, five on target and ten corners. Everton had 41.5%, thirteen shots and seven on target — fewer attempts, more accuracy, and one of them arriving at exactly the right moment.

Fourteen fouls from Everton against eleven from the home side, and five yellow cards between them, describes a game that was tighter and more physical than a 1-1 with twenty-nine shots might suggest.

Ten corners, and the one that mattered

Bournemouth won ten corners across ninety minutes and did not score from any of them. Everton won seven and scored from the last. That single line contains most of what separated the two sides on the day, and it is not a matter of luck so much as of intent: Everton put a centre-back in the box and aimed for him, and eventually it worked.

James Tarkowski finishing from the right side of the box into the middle of the goal is not a poacher goal. It is a set-piece routine arriving at the moment when a defence has stopped counting bodies, and it is the sort of goal that a side without a settled attack has to be able to score.

The wider concern for Bournemouth is that this is now two consecutive matches in which a lead has been surrendered in the closing minutes. Against Manchester City they led from the twenty-sixth and conceded on 84 and 91. Here they led from the forty-first and conceded on 90+1. One is a hard night; two is a habit forming, and habits at this stage of a season have eight months in which to become expensive.

Everton, by contrast, have four points from two games having scored three goals and looked comfortable for very little of either match. That is a perfectly respectable way to start a season.

Where it leaves them

Everton are sixth with four points from two matches. For a side whose opening two performances have been built on organisation rather than flourish, taking a point from a ground where they were second best for an hour is exactly the sort of result that adds up over a season.

Bournemouth are fourteenth with one point and, for the second week running, have dropped points in the final minutes of a game they had been leading. Once is a bad night. Twice, in the first fortnight, is the sort of thing a squad starts to think about — and thinking about it is usually how it happens a third time.

The other number worth keeping from the afternoon is twenty-nine: the combined shot count of a game that finished 1-1. Neither goalkeeper was overworked and neither defence was opened repeatedly, and yet the ball spent the whole ninety minutes travelling towards one box or the other. It was a better watch than the scoreline suggests.