Sky Sports pundit: Rafa would be fuming with Godfrey involvement in Crystal Palace’s goal
Everton suffered a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Sunday, with some sloppy defending hurting them.
James Tomkins doubled the hosts’ lead today (12 December) from a corner, and Efan Ekoku – during his commentary on Sky Sports – believes Rafa Benitez would be fuming with Ben Godfrey after he missed the ball.
Will Hughes delivered a simple corner and the Palace defender slotted home from close range after no one dealt with it having been lurking at the back post.
Ekoku said (as shared on the Sky Sports website): “It was difficult for Godfrey because it came through a lot of players.
“But Benitez will be fuming.”
Calamitous defending
Everton were the second-best all day, and not even Salomon Rondon’s goal was able to rescue them at the end of the day.
They were poor from start to finish with their defending, and they were made to pay for it in the end.
The players improved in the second half, but it was too little, too late.
Godfrey was impressive going forward having replaced Lucas Digne at left-back again for the Palace game, but one moment of questionable defending made things worse for his side.
He was not particularly to blame for the Eagles’ second goal, but could he have done better?
His teammates were below par until the closing stages of the game, and that was enough to ruin their day at the end of everything.
Everton travel to Stamford Bridge on Thursday (16 December) to face Chelsea, and they cannot afford to start that game like they did against Palace.
They definitely need to improve their defending and be at alert all game against Thomas Tuchel’s men to have a chance of getting something from that game.
In other Everton news, the Toffees are plotting January loan-to-buy bid for centre-mid hailed by Jack Grealish last month.
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