Key events
Full time! Everton 2-0 Nottingham Forest
Huge points for the hosts. Nervy times for Nuno and all the Forest faithful. We certainly haven’t heard the last of the various penalty appeals.
90 min+16 Chermiti booked for time-wasting, in an instance of the most pointless time-wasting you’ll ever see. Dyche is, predictably, fuming at that.
90 min+14 Gibbs-White vainly tries to get something, anything going. He swings a ball high … Pickford plucks it from the sky. Forest shoulders have slumped. Gibbs-White tries to force his way through the middle. No dice. He tries to clip a ball over the top from midfield … and finds Pickford again.
90 min+11 The match was fizzling out and the lengthy stoppage has made the remaining fizz even less fizzy. Everton are running down the clock fairly efficiently. Forest ran out of home here a good 15 minutes ago.
In fact Chermiti almost finds Garner in a promising position, sniffing for a third. It’s intercepted.
90 min+9 Beto raises a thumb to the fans as he departs, mercifully conscious, to chants of his name. Chermiti is on. Play resumes. Murillo gets a yellow card within about six nanoseconds.
90 min+7 The players and managers don’t know what to do with themselves. Ditto the fans. Ditto your resident live-blogger. And likewise 19-year-old Youssef Chermiti, who has been standing on the touchline waiting to replace Beto for around 6 minutes.
We are not currently being shown pictures of Beto, as medical staff still attend to him but I am led to believe that he is now on a stretcher and moving, so it sounds like he is conscious.
90 min+3 Gibbs-White is, thankfully, up. A stretcher is waiting for Beto, however, about whom there is significantly more concern. Of the little footage we’ve seen of him, it’s not clear that he’s moved since the collision. My decidedly non-medical eye leads me to believe he was unconscious from the moment of impact.
A hush briefly descended on the ground, which tells you plenty.
90 min+2 Eeesh – a bad clash of heads. Beto and Gibbs-White. Both sets of players immediately usher on medical staff. I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing replays of that.
90 min Harrison burns away some seconds on the right. Doucouré does some Fred Astaire-style footwork on the edge of the Forest box to account for some more. As things stand Everton have a five-point cushion to the relegation places.
89 min Elanga tries to get something going on the left. It’s just not happening. Everton mop up again. Murillo gets penalised after tangling with Neto.
The board goes up – there are nine minutes of stoppage time, and Everton have the ball.
87 min It’s all getting a little desperate now, as you might imagine. Yates buys a foul from Garner midway in the home half, and looks thrilled to have done so.
The ball in is better, but Pickford punches away.
Neco Williams has hurtled backwards over the advertising hoardings after a challenge with McNeil. He’s being attended to but is thankfully OK. That could have been nasty. Completely accidental, I hasten to add.
85 min Forest’s passing is crisp until the final third. Gibbs-White rides a foul from Doucouré but there’s no advantage to be had, so he gets a free-kick instead. His floated effort finds Yates’ head, but there’s an Everton boot on the second ball. There’s an Everton head or boot on all the second balls at the moment.
83 min Aina launches a throw from the right into Jordan Pickford’s box. Nobody in a red shirt is anywhere near it. Everton mop up, and almost get Beto clear through the middle. A last-ditch tackle halts his charge. Forest start again from the back.
82 min Harrison gets a booking for stopping an attempted Forest break. The visitors need a goal pretty much immediately if they’re going to get anything here.
80 min Branthwaite wants a card for new arrival Yates, who had an arm up while going for an aerial ball. He gets one, but so does Branthwaite, for trying to play ref. They don’t like that.
78 min The home faithful are bouncing. You can almost hear the stadium move. What a crucial goal that could prove for them.
More changes for Forest: Yates, Ribeiro and Origi (who gets a predictably warm welcome, given his past against Everton), on for Dominguez, Danilo and Hudson-Odoi.
Goal! Everton 2-0 Nottm Forest (McNeil 76)
Well then. Garner plays it square midway in the Forest half, there’s a nice interchange of passes on the edge of the Forest area, and suddenly McNeil absolutely thrashes it into the right corner.
He has another go in the time it’s taken me to type this, straight at Sels this time.
74 min Doucouré sees yellow for a raised boot. Williams goes long to set Gibbs-White free on the right, but Everton mop up.
Then comes Garner’s first meaningful action …
73 min It’s so, so error-strewn. Nerves are jangling. McNeil lets the ball roll under his foot for a throw after Taylor played a good advantage to see if Everton could make something of it. There’s your update, folks. Check back soon for more.
71 min Harrison turns beautifully to find space, leaving Aina sliding off the pitch on his rear end, and he crosses dangerously. No dice, however. Forest clear and advance once more.
69 min Wood should do better! He looks like taking a regulation short pass from Elanga, just to the right of the penalty spot, but it somehow eludes him. That was an opening that promised so much more.
67 min Forest are showing more quality on the ball at the moment, but they’re seeing less of it. Again they start from the back, with Gibbs-White getting a chance to lob forward … and his heavy lofted ping immediately makes me regret saying they’re showing more quality on the ball at the moment.
66 min Beto is now coming on for Calvert-Lewin. James Garner joins him, on for André Gomes.
63 min Elanga helps his side play out deftly from the back. Hudson-Odoi crosses from the left, but it’s cleared, and another promising position fizzles out.
61 min Calvert-Lewin is back on, but it’s more messy stuff at the back from Everton. They gift possession following a mix-up at right-back. Danilo almost gets on to a ball from Hudson-Odoi at the touchline, but it’s too heavy.
58 min Branthwaite returns and inexplicably tries to go on a mazy dribble along the edge of his own box. The move he tries to instigate falters almost immediately, and Gibbs-White is suddenly through and clear. He tries to bend it into the far right corner … it curls just wide.
Calvert-Lewin is down, with his right leg being looked at. Beto was briefly looking like being prepped to replace him, but after a thumbs-up from the starter, he re-bibs.
56 min Branthwaite is down after a coming-together but Forest play on, to the turbo-fume of the home faithful. Referee Taylor halts proceedings. While he gets attended to. He’s off the pitch but being patched up to return.
The penalty shout is interesting. Young seems to slide through Hudson-Odoi, but a bit of tippy-toe does apparently strike ball. Nuno is about as unchuffed-looking as you might imagine.
55 min Penalty shout! Hudson-Odoi goes down and is perplexed to not see the ref peeping and pointing at the spot. Replays of that could be interesting. Young felled him but may well have got a fair bit of ball first.
54 min Messy at the back post, all kinds of semi-punishable holding, and the ball breaks to Calvert-Lewin, who thrashes wide of the left stick.
53 min Reyna makes way for Elanga. But Ashley Young curtails an attempted Forest move, bursting forward to get a little something going. Net result: corner.
51 min Anthony Elanga is doing up his shorts toggles on the touchline. It’s no surprise that a change is imminent for Forest. The ball’s in the left corner for Everton, being shielded … in the 51st minute. It’s that kind of match.
50 min Branthwaite intervenes to clear a cross from the left. There are glimmers of openness at both ends but it’s all a bit scrappy.
48 min Another miskick from Pickford, this time with Wood marauding, goes unpunished. Calvert-Lewin gets a similarly unpunished cuddle from Niakhaté as he tries to find space on the left.
