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Chelsea beat Everton 2-0 at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, Pedro Neto scoring just after half-time and again in the 90th minute to end Everton's unbeaten start to the season. It was Chelsea's first league clean sheet in 23 games, which they will be mentioning for a while, but the afternoon was overshadowed when goalkeeper Emi Martínez was stretchered off with a head injury after a collision with Jarrad Branthwaite; Xabi Alonso said he was having precautionary tests in hospital. The win lifts Chelsea to 13 points after Matchweek 7 and into the top four. Everton stay on 8 points from seven games, with five draws and now a first league defeat on the board.
Pre-match Talking Points
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1Everton are unbeaten after six games in Matchweek 7's lunchtime kick-off, but five of those are draws, so they sit on 8 points. Chelsea have 10 and are fourth, coming off a 5-1 win over Bournemouth that ended a wobble of two defeats in three. Win here and Everton leap into the top four conversation; lose and the unbeaten run, their favourite talking point, is gone.
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2Chelsea have not scored in their last three visits to Everton, which is a very specific kind of bad luck for a club with their budget. It is a fun fact to drop in when someone says Chelsea are guaranteed three points. Everton's new Hill Dickinson Stadium is only in its second season, so the home crowd is still very much enjoying the novelty.
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3Keep an eye on Iliman Ndiaye, Everton's most likely source of a moment out of nothing. He is the sort of winger who can turn a dull draw into a story, and Everton have needed a few of those given they have scored just seven goals in six. If someone asks who to watch, say him and look knowing.
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4The subplot is Xabi Alonso's Chelsea and which version turns up. They have scored 13 and conceded 11 in six games, which is a fun-but-chaotic ratio that makes every match a coin toss. David Moyes, meanwhile, has built a team that is very hard to beat and, with five draws, not wildly keen on winning either.
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5The hook is the draw count. Everton have five of them in six games, which is a record-in-waiting if they add a sixth, and Chelsea have the goals to beat any defence but not, apparently, this ground. Immovable object meets slightly leaky unstoppable force, at lunchtime, on Merseyside.
Team Talking Points
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1Everton are fifth in the Premier League after coming from behind to beat promoted Coventry 3-1 last Friday. It was their third league win in a row. If you'd told an Everton fan a couple of years ago they'd be looking down on most of the league in November, they'd have asked what you were drinking.
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2Thierno Barry was the hero, scoring twice in about four minutes and setting up another, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall adding the third. Barry is the name to drop right now. He's turned into exactly the kind of big, awkward centre-forward Goodison fans always loved, now playing at the new stadium.
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3David Moyes was refreshingly honest afterwards. He admitted Coventry made it 'really difficult' and Everton were lucky not to concede a penalty for a James Tarkowski challenge before half-time. Managers who admit they got away with one are rare, so enjoy it.
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4That win was Moyes's 592nd game in charge of Everton, level with Harry Catterick for the most in the club's history. Catterick won two league titles, so it's a proper bit of company. Assuming he's in the dugout at Brentford on 23 November, Moyes takes the record outright.
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5The fixture list after the break is spicy, with a Merseyside derby against Liverpool coming up in the next few weeks. For the first time in a long while, Everton might go into it higher up the table than their neighbours care to admit.
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Top thing to say down the pub
Moyes is about to become the longest-serving manager in Everton's history, and the team's actually playing like it. Fifth in November isn't a fluke anymore.
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Avoid saying
"Everton are always in a relegation scrap" — that line was depressingly accurate for a while, which is exactly why fans in the top five will take great pleasure in correcting you.
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1Chelsea limped into the international break after a 1-0 defeat at Sunderland, settled by an Enzo Le Fée penalty in the first half. It dropped them to fifth, out of the Champions League places, and it was their fourth league defeat in ten games.
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2Xabi Alonso – appointed in the summer on a four-year deal to revive things – didn't sugar-coat it, saying Chelsea 'didn't deserve more than probably one point' and lacked patience and quality in the final third. The honesty is refreshing; the stats are less so.
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3Here's the worrying number: across games against Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester United and Sunderland, Chelsea scored just one goal from open play. For a squad that cost what this one did, that's a lot of very expensive passing sideways.
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4They've also been beaten 3-0 by Brentford this season, back in October. Chelsea fans would rather you didn't bring that one up, so maybe save it for when you want to change the subject quickly.
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5There's still plenty of time – they're only two points off the top four, six behind second-placed Brighton. And they're not shy about January: reports this week say Chelsea are among the clubs monitoring Arsenal's unhappy midfielder Martin Zubimendi.
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Top thing to say down the pub
One open-play goal in four games isn't what anyone had in mind when Xabi Alonso walked through the door – the break's come at a decent time for him.
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Avoid saying
"Just sack the manager" – it's Chelsea, so it's the reflex joke, but Alonso's only been in the job since the summer – ten games is not a fair trial. Say it and you'll sound like you think it's still 2012.