Watford’s Josh King stuns Everton with hat-trick in 5-2 comeback win

As he savoured the first Premier League hat-trick of his career, along with kick-starting Claudio Ranieri’s Watford reign in spectacular fashion, Josh King was asked to explain the contrast with his barren time at Everton last season. “I never got given a chance,” he stated, correctly.

Everton gave him plenty on his return. Goodison Park was an incredulous, furious place as a consequence.

One week after enduring a 5-0 defeat by Liverpool, Ranieri’s transformed team turned the tables on Merseyside to inflict a five-goal humbling of their own on Everton and Rafael Benítez. King was central to the rout, albeit with sizeable assistance from his former teammates. The Norway international failed to score in 11 appearances for Carlo Ancelotti’s side and his previous Premier League goal had come on the day Bournemouth were relegated here in July 2020. Prolific at Goodison, just not in an Everton shirt.

King, who missed last week’s Liverpool defeat, said: “It is a bit personal. I didn’t really get things going here and I felt like I had a point to prove to myself. I think I did that.”

Ranieri was full of praise for the clinical forward and the character shown by the entire Watford team after falling behind to Tom Davies’ opener after three minutes.

“Every time I spoke to my players I told them: ‘Never, never give up’,” said the new Watford manager.

“Atlético Madrid are one of the best teams at not conceding and lost 3-2 to Liverpool. If they can concede three to one of the best teams in the world then it can happen that Watford concede five, but after that you have to fight for every second ball and every duel.” Something Everton failed to do.

Benítez has built goodwill during his early days as Everton manager but Goodison turned in his 11th game in charge. His team gave the crowd good reason, serving up a truly shambolic defensive performance that turned a 2-1 lead in the 78th minute into a 5-2 defeat by the 91st.

Watford walked in some of their late goals as Everton’s defence disintegrated. There were boos on the final whistle from those fans who remained, boos when young Anthony Gordon was substituted and a few boos when Alex Iwobi appeared from the substitutes’ bench. A lengthy injury list provides no mitigation for a display a woeful as this.

The Everton manager said: “Anthony had a good game but he doesn’t have 90 minutes in him yet. He has to improve his stamina. I thought we needed Richarlison [Gordon’s replacement] because he can score goals and he came on the pitch and scored.

“If we finished winning everyone would say it was a great substitution but we made mistake after mistake and that was the key part of the game.”

Ranieri’s substitutes, Emmanuel Dennis and João Pedro, would have far greater impacts.

Demarai Gray, 128 seconds in and shortly after hugging the manager with whom he won the Premier League at Leicester, helped Everton make the perfect start when racing on to Gordon’s pass and crossing low for Davies, sliding in at the near post, to score his first goal since December 2019. Another long afternoon appeared to beckon for Watford at that point.

Everton were in control early on, Watford fragile, only for the pattern of the game and the mood inside Goodison to turn following a needless foul by the badly out-of-sorts Lucas Digne on Ismaïla Sarr. Adam Masina swept the free-kick over three Everton heads in the area, Craig Cathcart flicked on and King converted. Referee Graham Scott initially disallowed the goal for offside but the decision was overturned after a lengthy VAR review. Benítez seethed at conceding from a set piece for the second home game in succession.

Suddenly it was Everton who were uncertain and overly cautious. Goodison’s patience eroded. There were loud cheers when Richarlison stripped off to make his first appearance in almost six weeks. They turned to widespread boos when the crowd discovered that Gordon, one of the few effective players in blue, was being replaced. Within three minutes Richarlison restored Everton’s lead with a diving header from Michael Keane’s cross. The platform for an Everton victory proved to be a trap-door.

The impressive Juraj Kucka equalised with a towering header from Cucho Hernández’s corner as Everton conceded from yet another set piece. King then swept Watford ahead when Dennis found him unmarked inside the area. His hat-trick was straight out of Sunday league. The struggling Ben Godfrey and Allan ran into each other when attempting a routine clearance inside their own penalty area. The loose ball spun to King, who had time to step inside Keane and beat Jordan Pickford with ease.

Everton’s ignominy was not complete. In stoppage time Dennis, like King before him, was left with the freedom of the penalty area to collect Pedro’s cross and find the bottom corner. A seismic day for both clubs.