New-look Everton’s latest European campaign got off to only a stuttering start, though at least Leighton Baines’s second half goal gives them a slender advantage to try and hold on to in Slovakia next week.
There were several promising debuts as well, with Wayne Rooney finding himself slightly upstaged by the new recruit Sandro Ramírez, who does not actually look much younger but plays with the zip, confidence and aggression one would expect of a 22-year-old.
“One-nil with a clean sheet is not a bad result in Europe,” Ronald Koeman maintained. “Maybe people were expecting a bigger score but you cannot expect to be at 100 per cent in the first game of the season. We didn’t pass the ball well enough in the first half but we looked sharper in the second. Ramírez showed some good pace up front.”
Nevertheless Everton will probably need to improve on this performance to see off a team who overcame a first-leg deficit against Brann Bergen in the last round. “Nothing has been decided yet,” the Ruzomberok coach Norbert Hrnca warned. “We had two good opportunities tonight, maybe next week we can do the same and take them.”
This might have been Rooney’s first game back at his old club but it was also Everton’s first competitive outing since the departure of Romelu Lukaku, and during a quiet opening they struggled to find a focus for their attacks. Deployed in the centre forward position Rooney was easily dominated in the air by the tall Jan Maslo, and efforts to play him in on the ground met with so little success it was tempting to wonder whether the returning hero had brought with him some of the stolidity of Manchester United.
Rooney did have Everton’s only serious goal attempt of the first half hour, to be fair, a shot on the turn that flew over the angle of post and bar, though otherwise the only threat to Ruzomberok’s goal was a sliced clearance by Dominik Kruzliak that forced Matus Macik to react quickly to prevent an own goal.
When Rooney came deep in search of the ball he surrendered possession on a couple of occasions, one of which led to a shot from Dalibor Takac that only rolled a foot or two wide. Persistence on the right wing by Dominic Calvert-Lewin eventually found Rooney in front of goal on the half hour, though off balance he could only manage the tamest of scuffs towards the Park End goal.
That seemed to encourage Everton, however, and their next attack was more composed, a close passing move that saw Davy Klaassen accept a return ball from Calvert-Lewin just outside the six yard box, only to take a touch that narrowed the shooting angle and see his effort find the side-netting.
Despite overwhelming possession Everton were not exactly peppering the Ruzomberok goal, and a reminder that the side that finished third in Slovakia’s Fortuna Liga are quite useful came six minutes from the interval when a mistake by Ashley Williams let in Erik Daniel for a shot. Maarten Stekelenburg got down well enough to save, though Koeman must have been concerned by that stage that Everton had not managed anything to remotely stretch Macik.
Calvert-Lewin did register a shot on target right at the end of the first half, crossing the field from the right wind and sending in a speculative effort in the absence of any other options, though it was straight at the goalkeeper and no problem for Macik to deal with. Shooting rather hopefully from distance summed up Everton’s lack of creativity. Ross Barkley is injured, and in dispute, but on this evidence Koeman might be making a mistake in ushering him towards the exit door.
Positives for Everton included reasonably solid debuts from Michael Keane and Cuco Martina, not that the defence was put under enormous pressure, though Klaassen was less effective as the attacking point of a midfield trio. The former Ajax player looked determined to do better at the start of the second half and found himself quite quickly in advanced positions, only to see an attempt to find Rooney in front of goal blocked before a headed chance missed the target. Everton as a whole were a little more fired up after the interval, Kevin Mirallas ending a spell of pressure with a shot blocked on the line, though once again Ruzomberok came closer when Jan Maslo saw a header touched against the crossbar from a free kick.
Koeman sent on Ramírez after an hour to good effect, the former Malaga striker not only injecting some pace and movement to a static front line but sending Rooney out to the right wing. Within a couple of minutes Everton had taken the lead. Ramírez had nothing to do with that, it was simply a matter of Baines swinging an effective boot at a half-cleared Mirallas corner to score via a deflection, though the new striker showed an appetite that quickly endeared him to his new public.
Rooney looked happier out wide as well, and when the two of them combined in Everton’s best move of the evening it took a fingertip save from Macik to prevent Mirallas extending the lead. “We know we are in for a tough game next week, it was tough tonight,” the Everton captain Baines said.
“But at least we will know a bit more about what to expect, and as a team we will know each other that bit better too.”
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