Everton 4-0 Wolves: Sean Dyche’s side emphatically end goal drought as Craig Dawson scores twice at the WRONG end

They stood several feet apart, their feet welded to a thick white line that sometimes felt like the edge of a cliff.

Football management is always so precarious and while Sean Dyche shuffled a few steps back from the edge as Everton rediscovered the art of scoring, Gary O’Neil’s situation became even more precarious.

Wolves were impoverished and how those who traveled to Merseyside let him know that.

Everton aren’t known for their attacking prowess, but they plundered four here – two of which went the way of hapless Wolves defender Craig Dawson – to record their biggest win since May 2023 and could easily have achieved double that with a bit of fortune .

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” O’Neil was told by the away section, as Wolves lurched from one disaster to another before following up with the even sharper: “You’re going to be sacked in the morning.” .’

Those are the kinds of messages heard in boardrooms.

Dawson found the net the wrong way in the 49th minute and then again in the 72nd minute

The Toffees had not scored at all in their previous four matches before hitting Wolves for four

This was billed as a relegation battle, but the truth was that only one team looked threatened by that particular outcome and it wasn’t the team in blue and white. When Everton are this physical they are formidable and you actually wonder why they ever struggle.

Is it a matter of attitude? On that point you can draw your own conclusions, but in this battle no one can be blamed on that point.

With the locals reserving the right to pass judgement, having been so let down in recent months, it was up to Dyche’s team to win them over.

The six barren hours that had passed since Beto’s equalizer against Fulham on October 26 had felt double, such was the lack of play from Everton and you wondered what would have happened if Wolves had taken an early advantage here; they had opportunities too.

Jorgen Strand Larsen fired the first opening shot wide after 63 seconds before Matheus Cunha invited Jordan Pickford into his first action of the evening in the seventh minute, with the England goalkeeper lunging to his left to deflect the danger and dampen the audible fear.

No team in the country walks such a line as Everton: fall behind and anger flares from all sides; stick their noses forward and there is a palpable release of tension.

It would have been easy for Dyche’s men to fall into darkness here, but to his relief they began to rise.

So credit to Young for having the character to take the free-kick after Dominic Calvert-Lewin had been overthrown by Everton’s lead in the tenth minute, with the veteran deliberately keeping his shot low as it fizzled and slid outside the reach of Jose Sa. nestled in the bottom corner.

Everton’s first goal of the match on Wednesday came straight from an Ashley Young free-kick

Orel Mangala then doubled Everton’s lead in the 33rd minute of the match at Goodison Park

Everton manager Sean Dyche and Wolves’ Gary O’Neil, pictured on the touchline during the match

You should have made it two six minutes later, but trust that old passion killer VAR which has complicated a simple situation: Orel Mangala would have disrupted play before James Tarkowski headed in, but the decision was handed back like a hot potato from Stockley Park. .

To the sound of deafening anger, the goal was disallowed, but the referees had, unknowingly, supported Everton’s cause. The oven was turned up to maximum heat, the ones in Blue started to turn up a little more and suddenly the Wolves were melting.

Mangala struck a beautiful strike in the 33rd minute and you knew instinctively that Wolves wouldn’t come back.

After the break they folded completely when Dawson put through his own net under pressure from Calvert-Lewin in the 49th and 72nd minutes.

“Gary, Gary, what’s the score?” the away fans crowed. Like his team, he had no answers.