Briefly and improbably, Everton are top of the
Premier League. They got there not by clerical error, or through a sudden and unexplained vaporisation of all the teams beginning with letters from A to D, but by winning their third game in a row: a greasy, hard-fought, relentless entertaining arm wrestle with Crystal Palace at a drenched and freezing Selhurst Park.
They were the better team, the more ambitious team, the more attractive team to watch, and yet they still largely owed their win to the butterfly wings of VAR: Richarlison’s first-half penalty being awarded for a painfully harsh handball against Joel Ward. Nonetheless, they continue to make strides under Carlo Ancelotti, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin notching his fifth goal of the season and the defence putting in another solid shift.