Dele Alli's struggles at Everton continued on Wednesday night as he missed an open goal from a yard out, in the team's embarrassing pre season defeat to Minnesota United.
Everton were pretty lucky to survive relegation at the end of last season, with the relief of staying up and the pitch invasion to celebrate it showing how close the fans thought they were to dropping out of the Premier League.
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Frank Lampard will be hoping to turn things around in the upcoming season but things aren't exactly looking rosey in pre season, as they suffered a second defeat.
The Toffees had already lost 2-0 to Arsenal, thanks in part to a brilliant Gabriel Jesus goal, and came up against MLS side Minnesota on Wednesday.
They might have expected to fare better against the Americans but a strong line up found themselves 3-0 down at half time, with James Tarkowski scoring an own goal.
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Things didn't exactly improve in the second half, with nine new players coming on after the break, and their evening was summed up by Alli's miss.
In the 74th minute, the midfielder should have scored, after getting on the end of a low cross, but somehow managed to hit the ball wide with an open goal in front of him, from about a yard.
Emanuel Reynoso had put the hosts ahead from the spot, after Tom Davies had handled in the box, before Tarkowski doubled the lead for the hosts, after Everton had several chances.
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Luis Amarilla made it 3-0 before half time, when Lampard rang the changes, but it didn't really improve after the break, even if it didn't go quite as badly.
After Alli's miss, Abu Danladi finished off the scoring in the 78th minute, handing the Premier League side an absolute battering.
Speaking after the match, Lampard said, "If we don’t want to be in that situation again, they have to be better and I have to be better.
"The players in the dressing room need to understand that they’ve put in a very poor performance individually and collectively."
For Alli, the miss is the latest setback in ac career that promised so much early on but has delivered so little in recent years, and at Everton.
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He moved to Goodison Park in January, after falling well down the pecking order at Tottenham Hotspur, and it initially took him a good while to get a start in Merseyside.
There was hints of the old Alli as the team confirmed their stay in the top tier, with the win over Crystal Palace at the end of the season, but the latest miss will not do his confidence any good.
Featured Image Credit: TwitterTopics: Major League Soccer, MLS, Everton, Premier League, Dele Alli
