Tottenham’s FA Cup demise will leave Jose Mourinho livid after Everton thriller
No-one takes the FA Cup as seriously as Jose Mourinho – it is a trophy, after all.
And no-one will be as livid, privately or otherwise, as Mourinho will be with an exit like this.
Jose is a not a fan of nine-goal thrillers, full stop. To lose one must be spectacularly painful. That Carabao Cup Final is assuming greater importance by the day.
"We scored four goals, but four goals was not enough," declared the Portuguese.
But while this was excruciating for Mourinho, at least it livened up this round of FA Cup ties and gave Everton hope that Carlo Ancelotti can add silverware to his own stardust.
If they can show the resilience they did here – substitute Bernard stealing the extra-time winner – they could go far in this competition.
They appear to have more resilience than Gareth Bale, who missed the trip north because he had “some feelings he is not happy with”, according to his coach.
Being behind Erik Lamela in a pecking order must be one of them, surely.
To be fair to Lamela, he brought a high-class save from Robin Olsen even before Davinson Sanchez produced a prodigious leap to meet Heung-Min Son’s third minute corner and nod Spurs ahead.
Such early adventure from a Mourinho operation clearly caught Everton unaware but Spurs were soon in a familiar counter-attacking pattern.
And they got some joy, Son’s first-timer stretching Olsen again, but Everton were allowed periods of pressure their overall play really did not deserve.
Their lack of fluency and apparent eagerness to surrender possession meant first half chances were at a premium, with Calvert-Lewin’s post-rattler more a product of deflection than precision.
And Mourinho would have been bordering on the mortified to see Son and Steven Bergwijn combine to waste a perfect breakaway chance to double the lead.
Within a few minutes, out of the royal blue, Everton were comfortably ahead and Hugo Lloris a picture of misery.
Calvert-Lewin, in front of a watching Gareth Southgate, was sharp to latch on to a kindly bounce and struck his volley sweetly but Lloris should have done better than to help it in.
The Frenchman, far from faultless this season, was then hoodwinked by a Richarlison grass-hugger that went through the legs of Toby Alderweireld before being sent the wrong way by Gylfi Sigurdsson’s penalty after Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg had clipped Calvert-Lewin.
Mourinho was probably as stunned by the seven and a half minutes of goal-conceding madness as he was by more Lamela excellence in the lifted left-foot finish that brought a fittingly pleasant end to a carefree first half.
And talking of being stunned, how about a double from Sanchez?
Few were here and few saw that coming. Again, it was the result of Everton’s surprising vulnerability at corner-kicks, Alderweireld rising highest this time and Sanchez poaching after Olsen’s initial stop.
And when Calvert-Lewin had to limp off – and with Harry Kane now in the fray – the odds looked stacked in Spurs favour.
But more slapdash stuff at the back allowed Richarlison to ghost in and beat Lloris from a narrow angle.
Yet if you wanted a sense of normality, it came when Son persuaded a cross onto Kane’s head to send the contest into extra time.
Going into that 30-minute period, it appeared to be Spurs with the momentum.
But this was a game that never followed the script and Sigurdsson’s clever pass and Bernard’s emphatic finish proved to be the final, telling blow.
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