Sometimes, it just isn’t meant to be a good night. For Leicester, the message seemed to sink in around the 68th minute, when Kasper Schmeichel attempted a short, easy pass and somehow played it straight into touch.
Poor bloke, it wasn’t even his roughest moment. That was probably Richarlison’s goal in the first half, which he should have saved, or maybe it was Mason Holgate’s prod for 2-0 in the second.
That came after Schmeichel made two brilliant reflex blocks, presumably to the amusement of a defence that didn’t fancy getting involved in the clean up of a Gylfi Sigurdsson corner. They watched on as Everton won the first header and its various rebounds, before Schmeichel had himself a little swear when his efforts added up to nothing.
Mason Holgate doubled Everton’s lead following a goalmouth scramble in the 72nd minute
The young defender celebrates after wrapping up Everton’s second victory in five days
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Holgate slots home from close range as Leicester desperately tried to clear the danger
So a pretty ropey evening for a keeper who has earned the right to be cut some slack, and not a good game at all for Leicester, who also had a penalty overturned by the VAR and a goal disallowed the old-fashioned way in the space of the final 10 minutes.
The worry for Brendan Rodgers is that these are the sort of games that erode confidence. They did famously well out of the last season in which so many contenders looked fallible, but on this lap Leicester are yet to reveal if they will thrive in the chaos of the 2020-2021 campaign or become engulfed by it. Across 13 games, they have been capable of both battering Manchester City – before it became popular – and also losing to the likes of Fulham.
Not that defeat to Everton should serve as a barometer of a bad times, but their failure to create anything of consequence against a side that has conceded so freely ought to be a concern. Ditto their home form, with four defeats from seven.
But credit to Everton. They are moving again.
It has been a brilliant five days for Everton in the Premier League after back-to-back victories
It was a tough evening at the office for Leicester as they struggled to deal with the Toffees
After a scorching run of five at the start of the season, and the malaise of seven points from seven games, they have their second straight league win and are unbeaten in three. Better still, they have collected successive clean sheets, which for a time this campaign appeared to be beyond Carlo Ancelotti. Progress all round.
But what of Jordan Pickford? He was dropped here for Robin Olsen, and the question is whether it was a signal of dissatisfaction from Ancelotti, or merely a ‘rest’ in a busy period, as the Italian suggested.
The timing around his omission was certainly curious, coming as it did after his second clean sheet of the season, but on the balance of Pickford’s campaign, not many will protest with any great sense of conviction. Swamps would offer firmer ground.
Beyond that eye-catcher, Ancelotti kept 10 of the same side that beat Chelsea.
Rodgers, meanwhile, made three changes to his 11, with Wilfred Ndidi repurposed from midfield to centre-back to cover for the suspended Jonny Evans. Marc Albrighton and Ayoze Perez were also nudged to the bench and Papy Mendy, Harvey Barnes and Cengiz Under were all given starts in the 4-2-3-1 shape with which they had their best passages of play against Brighton.
Richarlison got Everton off to the perfect start against Leicester at the King Power Stadium
The Brazilian celebrates with his team-mates after putting the Toffees ahead in the 21st minute
Richarlison cut in from the left before rifling home into the corner past Kasper Schmeichel
Richarlison fires home into the bottom corner through a host of Leicester players
Until the opening goal, they were solid. Entirely untroubled in fact, with Everton creating nothing across the opening 20 minutes and the only decent chance falling for Leicester, when Harvey Barnes cut in from the left and made space for Youri Tielemans on the edge of the area. The shot was pulled wide.
From that single pocket of promise, they were soon behind to a Richarlison curler that in likelihood should have been saved by Kasper Schmeichel. There is no doubting Schmeichel saw the ball late as it passed through a cluster of bodies, with Richarlison having side-stepped James Justin and taken aim for the bottom right from 20 yards, but the shot was hardly flush in the corner.
Jamie Vardy sent a free header directly at Olsen almost immediately in response before Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Under missed decent chances towards the close of the half. Worryingly for Everton, they then lost Allan to what appeared to be a hamstring issue. He had been the best player on the pitch until he went down.
Ayoze Perez turns in from a corner at the death but the goal was ruled out for offside
Lee Mason takes a look at the pitchside monitor after Leicester were awarded a penalty late on
However, the penalty was overturned after Ayoze Perez went down in the penalty area
James Maddison, who had been so creatively marvellous against Brighton, ballooned over the first decent moment of the second half – 20 minutes in, it should be said – and shortly afterwards Everton were two clear.
The misfortune for Schmeichel is that it came immediately after his two best contributions of the match, with two excellent reflex saves to stop Michael Keane and then Calvert-Lewin in defence of one Gylfi Sigurdsson corner. The latter block came back off the bar and fell for Mason Holgate to bury.
Andre Gomez lunged across Ayoze Perez to concede a late penalty, before Lee Mason reversed the call after watching the incident back on the pitchside monitor. Perez then had a goal disallowed for offside.
Allan was forced off with a hamstring injury in the opening period on Wednesday evening