Sean Dyche admitted Everton had been second best but praised their mentality after a stoppage-time Beto header rescued them a 1-1 draw at home against Fulham.
The substitute connected with Ashley Young’s delivery in the fourth minute of added time to cancel out former Toffees winger Alex Iwobi’s 61st-minute strike and extend Everton’s unbeaten run to five matches.
While they had a first-half effort disallowed for offside when Dominic Calvert-Lewin slotted in on the follow-up after Idrissa Gueye’s shot hit the bar, the hosts had struggled to show much threat during the contest before Beto’s last-gasp intervention.
And Everton manager Dyche said: “I thought we weren’t at it, I thought they were. I think they’re a good outfit anyway and they were better than us on the night.
“Not by a long shot – we weren’t in massive trouble, we weren’t getting rings ran round us, but just the feel of the game. I thought we were short of where we have been.
“On the other hand, the balance of football is it lasts for 96 minutes on this occasion and the mentality I’ve asked the players to continue growing is that relentlessness, and I think that was on show.
“The last 10 minutes you could sense we were knocking on the door all of a sudden, and when we did score I wasn’t that surprised because I felt the energy and the feeling of the game had changed, albeit for a short period.
“I was pleased in the end to keep the unbeaten run going and get a point.”
The equaliser was Beto’s first goal of the season and only his sixth since joining from Udinese in the summer of 2023, and Dyche said of the Guinnea-Bissau international: “Brian Clough used to have a saying, ‘sometimes you’ve got to get hurt to score a goal’, and I thought he was willing to.
“He was in the mix, he throws his head at it and it’s a good header.”
Dyche, whose side rise a place to 15th in the Premier League table, also said he had no update regarding an injury sustained by Dwight McNeil, adding: “Hopefully it’s nothing too serious.”
Fulham took the lead through Iwobi having gone close twice in quick succession in the first half when Adama Traore’s shot was parried by Jordan Pickford and Emile Smith Rowe hooked over the bar.
The Cottagers, whose boss Marco Silva was also back at his old club having managed Everton from May 2018 to December 2019, stay 10th, and the Portuguese said: “Really tough for us, the result, and sometimes football is difficult to explain.
“All the things don’t go in the direction of the team that played much better from the first minute, the only team that tried to control the game. It’s tough for us right now, the players are down in the dressing room.
“We should have killed the game with 2-0, we didn’t, and of course these type of games, the last minutes, can go in a way that was unfair to be honest for us. Unfortunately they score in one moment, and in that moment we should defend better in our box.
“But clearly we were the much better team and we deserved the three points. But the reaction was really good from us – I have to look at all the picture, and this is the reaction I wanted (after losing 3-1 at home to Aston Villa last time out). Even if the result was really tough for us, the fans have to be proud the way we played.”
