Branthwaite earns late point for Everton in 2-2 draw with Tottenham

Jarrad Branthwaite scored a 94th minute equaliser as relegation-threatened Everton rescued a point against Tottenham Hotspur with a 2-2 home draw on Saturday to move out of the bottom three in the Premier League table.

Richarlison, once the darling of Goodison Park, scored a brace of goals in the first half and looked to have won the game for the visitors, but Branthwaite headed in at the back post after Everton had troubled Spurs all game with their set-pieces.

Jack Harrison also scored for Everton and after Spurs failed to kill the game in the second half, the battling Merseyside club always had hope they could take something from the match.

Spurs are in fourth in the table on 44 points from 23 games, missing the chance to move level on points with second-placed Manchester City, though they have played two games more. Everton provisionally moved up to 17th with 19 points from their 23 games.

“I’m pretty disappointed, particuarly conceding so late,” Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou said. “I thought we had chances to kill them off in the second half, we knew they would throw a lot of balls into the box and we would have to deal with a lot of things.

“It seemed like the refereeing was just going to let everything go and let the VAR pick up the scraps and for us nothing happened in that sense.”

Everton fans protested against the Premier League and held up yellow placards that read ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’ in reference to the Merseyside club’s 10-point deduction for an alleged breach of profit and sustainability rules.

Their appeal against that penalty was held this week with a verdict due in mid-February.

Tottenham led early through Richarlison. Spurs moved the ball well down the left-hand side and Destiny Udogie’s pass was lashed home by the unmarked the Brazilian.

Harrison rather unwittingly equalised on the half-hour mark as a corner was met at back post by James Tarkowski and his header into the six-yard box was directed goalwards by Dominic Calvert-Lewin and it went in off Harrison.

Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario felt he was fouled by Harrison as the corner came over, but a VAR check allowed the goal.

The visitors were back in front four minutes before halftime as they broke quickly and from James Maddison’s flick, Richarlison placed an excellent shot beyond former team mate Jordan Pickford, his ninth Premier League goal in eight games.

Everton remained a threat from the set-pieces and got their reward as Christian Romero’s attempted clearance from a free-kick was only steered into the path of Branthwaite, who beat a flailing Vicario.

“It is a massive point, we have had a rough patch recently,” Branthwaite told BBC. “We took our chances, obviously a bit disappointed with the goals we conceded but it is a good point and shows the fight we have as a team.

“We worked putting pressure on the keeper (at set-pieces)through the week and it worked well.”