Gabby Agbonlahor makes ‘careful’ Everton admission after Burnley win
Gabby Agbonlahor has admitted that teams around the relegation zone are going to have to be “careful” after Everton moved further away from the bottom three with a win over Burnley.
Goals from Amadou Onana and Micheal Keane in the first half gave Sean Dyche’s side all three points on his return to Turf Moor. The result saw Everton move seven points clear of the drop zone despite their 10-point deduction.
While Agbonlahor has heaped praise on Dyche and the Toffees for their upturn in performance, he has suggested that other teams in the division will have to be wary of slipping into the relegation zone as Everton make their way out of it.
Speaking on talkSPORT (16 December, 18:40) he said: “First of all I want to give Everton some credit. Since they lost to Manchester United at home, this will be four wins in a row. Probably the form of the Premier League. If they didn’t lose their 10 points they’d be on 26 points, a point behind Manchester United.
“You’ve got to give Sean Dyche credit, he’s gone back to his old club and shown them you can play all this football, this fancy tika taka but my team have gone there and got a result.
“I just think teams have got to be careful down there. Everton aren’t messing about, they look organised, strong, and they’re scoring goals.”
Huge win
So many people in the footballing world had written Dyche and his team off as soon as they were hit with that unprecedented 10-point deduction. Almost everybody had assumed that they would be relegated and slip into the Championship without a whimper.
But somehow, it has galvanised the Toffees and made them even better and with each passing week they look more and more like a top-half team rather than a side in the midst of a relegation battle.
The performance at Turf Moor was far from pretty and it wasn’t a great watch for the neutral, but the important thing was picking up all three points and Everton did exactly that with flying colours and they deserve plenty of credit for that.
However, the most important thing is the fact that the Toffees have now dragged other teams into the relegation fight on their way up. Forest now are more likely to go down than Dyche’s side and putting that sort of distance between yourself and the bottom three is crucial.
There’s still plenty of football to be played but Saturday felt like a huge step in the right direction.
