Beto’s late equaliser snatched a point for Everton at Brighton, with the Seagulls dropping points after conceding a late goal for a second game in a row.
With the last kick of the game against Fulham last weekend, Brighton were beaten by Harry Wilson’s free-kick. This time, it was a rebounded effort that saw them drop two points.
Jake O’Brien’s initial effort was pushed away by Bart Verbruggen but Beto – who was celebrating his 28th birthday – turned home the loose ball as Everton once again came from behind away from home to take a point.
There had been a brief VAR check for offside against James Tarkowski, but he was deemed to not be interfering with play and the goal stood. The goal drew an animated celebration from Everton boss David Moyes, who was booked for his troubles afterwards – after the game, he said it was worth it.
The Brighton players looked distraught afterwards and were met by loud boos from the home fans at full-time, with their winless Premier League run stretching to four games.
It had looked to be a fairy-tale win too, with Pascal Gross putting Brighton ahead with his first goal since returning to the club on January 2.
It was a simple finish, turning home Yasin Ayari’s cross. Credit too has to go to Charalampos Kostoulas, who left the ball for his team-mate to slot home.
Brighton thought they had scored a second not long after too, but Kaoru Mitoma’s effort was ruled out for an offside in the build-up.
Despite the nature of it, a draw was probably a fair result. It was a game of two halves, with Brighton the better in the first and Everton improved in the second.
Beto celebrates his injury-time equaliser
In truth, it couldn’t have gotten much worse for the Toffees, who registered no shots in the first 45 minutes and an xG of zero. They had their first shot in the 52nd minute and it was a decent one too with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – making his first start since December 6 after injury – firing wide.
Although Everton conceded their first away goals since December 13, and miss out on a fourth successive clean sheet on their travels, they sneak up into eighth place in the Premier League table on 34 points. They are just four points from the top four. For Brighton, they drop into 13th place on 31 points.
Moyes: A deserved point in the end
Everton manager David Moyes to Sky Sports: “You don’t get many [chances to celebrate late winners]. I’d like it to have been bigger, but they’re stopping managers celebrating. You can’t jump around and jump down the pitch.
“I hope I didn’t look as bad as David Pleat did when he did his. But why not? It’s an emotional game so it was worth the yellow card.
Beto celebrates after he scored an equaliser at Brighton
“It pleased me so much because we came here and played and didn’t make it easy for Brighton, who have a great record at home.
“For us to come here and nick a point in the last minute… it wasn’t a nick, I felt like it was a deserved point in the end and we’d done enough to take something from the game.
“We wanted to ask questions in the opening 25 or 30 minutes of the game, but I thought it was Brighton who were asking the questions of us in that period.
“But the league is so tight, you can dominate one half and you can be up against it in the second half. The games at the moment are really up and down at different times because of the level of the teams.
“Brighton were certainly better than us for the majority of the first half. We were better in the second half… There were small signs we were going to have a chance to get back into the game. The truth was we still need to make opportunities and create more.”
On Beto: “I’m so pleased for him because he’s such a good lad. He tries to get better every day o it gives him every opportunity and he deserves it because things haven’t been going so well for him.
“But he got his goal today, really important to us to get a point here and keep totalling up what we’ve got in the Premier League.”
Hurzeler: Late draw is painful
Pascal Gross scored his first goal since his return to Brighton
Brighton head coach Fabian Hurzeler to Sky Sports: “I said it before the game, we need to manage the key moments better and one certain moment 20 seconds before the end cost us this game, therefore it’s painful. But we’ll take ownership and responsibility for that and keep going.
“We lost the ball in an easy way then we didn’t defend it at the edge of the box so you can’t say that one player was the key problem. It’s always defending and attacking the goal together, we win and lose together.
“We will analyse it and we have to make it better because it’s about results, not only good performances.”
On what he has said to his players: “That there are only two choices in life – you can feel sorry for yourself and have self-pity, or you say ‘we know we have to overcome this phase, we know that, tough times build tough people’ and that’s what we trying to do.
“We try to build tough players to overcome this phase and then I’m sure after a bad phase, there will be good phases as well.”
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