Agree with you. There is one issue, and that is that Poch identified that our play dropped after 75mins. This seems to be the time when our play does drop, because the same thing has happened in a number of games. I understand that this has usually happened after EL games, but I wonder whether our players' body clocks do wind down at that time.God knows why there are so many complaints over this game. Dembele being out was a massive loss, but instead of allowing that to hurt us we went out in the first half and dominated.
If we had scored first I suspect we would have kept on pushing and in all likelihood won the game. Instead we went behind against the run of play but admirably stuck to our guns and forced ourselves back into the match. It was for the most part an excellent 45 minutes, and the much maligned Tom Carroll was certainly a part of that.
Fatigue and a better-drilled Everton side changed the dynamic of the match in the second half. Everton came out fighting, as you'd expect of a team that is under pressure due to some recent poor results at home. They have some great players so this was never likely to be a one-sided walkover. The fact that we made it look that way in the first half is to our credit, and cause for a lot of optimism for the rest of the season.
Yes we got a bit of a battering at the very end of the match, but we will now be mentally stronger for getting through it. I think we had the best record of any team over the Christmas matches (notorious for being difficult due to congestion), so I'm very happy with that.
I understand the disappointment of it being 'two points dropped', but that's obviously better than gaining a scrappy or undeserved point in a difficult fixture.