James Tarkowski was speaking following Everton’s Premier League against Brentford
James Tarkowski admitted he was feeling as frustrated as Everton supporters after his side missed a big opportunity to get back to winning ways against Brentford. The Blues were held to a goalless draw by Thomas Frank’s side, who played the entire second-half with 10-men after Christian Norgaard was sent off following a VAR review.
Referee Chris Kavanagh was sent to the monitor after Norgaard challenged Jordan Pickford following a ball into the box. And after reviewing the incident, the match official gave the Bees captain his marching orders.
But the Blues failed to make their extra man count. The closest they came to a breakthrough arrived midway through the second half when the ball fell to Vitalii Mykolenko a couple of yards out, but the Ukrainian could only fire over.
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There were brief jeers from Blues supporters at full-time as those who remained until the end ventured their frustration, and Tarkowski admitted that a failure to beat 10 men is always a missed opportunity for any side.
He said: “It is always a missed opportunity when you play against 10 men for that long, for sure, but we have got to play everyone twice this season.
“We are not playing anyone more than another team, so the games are coming no matter what, whoever you are playing against, so we just play whoever is next on the fixture list.
“So we go to Old Trafford next week, and the teams that we have got coming up, we have picked up points against them before.
“They are tough games, but you don’t get an easy game in this league where you are guaranteed three points. We look forward to them.”
Tarkowski added: “It is frustrating. I have been on the other end of that where we have defended with 10 men, and it is difficult for teams to break you down, so we knew it was going to be like that.
“They are a team that defends the box very well. We made chances, but sometimes they just don’t go in. It is very frustrating. A point on the board, and we have to just move on from there and go to the next game.
“There were chances there. Myko [Vitalii Mykolenko] had a right-foot chance, and Beto had a couple of chances; it wasn’t like we created nothing throughout the whole of the second-half.
“It was tough. They are a team that defends the box very well, so when they just have to just sit on the edge of their box, like they did, it was always going to be a difficult task. We made opportunities, but just enough to put the ball in the back of the net.”
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Everton had 27 shots during the game at Goodison, last managing more in a Premier League game without scoring in February 2016 against West Bromwich Albion. But the fact the Blues failed to beat Mark Flekken means they have only scored three times in their last six league games.
“Early season we scored quite a few goals and didn’t defend very well, and it has sort of flipped on its head a little bit now,” Tarkowski said when asked about his struggles in front of goal.
“Maybe we can get that balance right of defending well enough and creating enough chances to score goals. Three points will start to come a little more often.”
And when asked why it isn’t clicking at the top end of the pitch, the centre-back replied: “I mean, we have been very, very close.
“I think in the Southampton game Beto got a ball smashed off his head and it hit the bar from two yards out. All teams go through periods like this where they struggle to score. We are not the only team this happened to.
“Sometimes it just takes one little scruffy goal to go in, and then you go on a little run. So hopefully that will come next week when we go to Old Trafford.”
