Sasa Kalajdzic scored his first goal for Wolverhampton Wanderers as Gary O’Neil’s men edged past Everton 1-0 at Goodison Park in the Premier League.
The towering Austrian rose highest to head home the game’s only goal in the dying embers, condemning the Toffees to a third-straight defeat without a goal at the start of a Premier League season for the first time ever.
Introducing both Arnaut Danjuma and Lewis Dobbin into the attack, Everton quickly took the game by the scruff of the neck in the opening exchanges and struck the woodwork through the former with 14 minutes gone, although the offside flag would have spared the visitors’ blushes anyway.
Exactly 14 minutes later, James Tarkowski managed to get a shot away following a goalmouth scramble from Jarrad Branthwaite’s saved strike, but the centre-back miscued his close-range effort as the ball struck the side netting.
Danjuma scuffed another shot in the 36th minute as Everton’s lack of ruthlessness continued to bedevil them, and the beleaguered visitors made a defensive change at the break, as Hwang Hee-chan – who had taken a knock in the first half – was withdrawn for Rayan Ait-Nouri.
Sean Dyche’s side remained in the ascendancy following the restart, but it was the visitors who had the ball in the back of the net through Fabio Silva in the 57th minute, as the Portuguese striker poked home from Hugo Bueno’s cross.
However, Silva had gone a fraction too early and saw his strike chalked off, three minutes before capitalising on a mix-up between Tarkowski and Jordan Pickford, only to send a wonderful chance wide of the Englishman’s goal.
The shot-stoppers continued to steal the spotlight, as Pickford had to be alert to keep Branthwaite’s header from nestling into his own net in the 63rd minute, before a falling Jose Sa produced a save-of-the-season contender in the 67th minute, magnificently tipping Abdoulaye Doucoure’s header over the crossbar.
The midfielder could hardly have come closer to breaking the deadlock – or so he thought – as he collected the ball from James Garner in the 78th minute and directed a low strike into the back of the net, only to be denied by the tightest of offside calls.
In a tale as old as time, Everton’s profligacy was their undoing, as in the 87th minute of the match, Kalajdzic – whose Wolves career barely got going before his serious injury – headed home his first goal for the club from Pedro Neto’s floated delivery.
Everton’s efforts for a late response were futile, and a cacophony of boos rang out as the visitors clinched their first win under O’Neil, who now welcomes Blackpool to Molineux on Tuesday for an EFL Cup second-round tie.
