Coleman the hero as Everton emerge victorious from relegation battle with Leeds

Seamus Coleman’s freakish goal was the stroke of luck Everton needed to lift them out of the relegation zone and plunge managerless Leeds into it following their 1-0 defeat at Goodison Park.

New manager Sean Dyche knew he would need some good fortune after the Premier League’s lowest scorers failed to make a January signing despite the injury-prone striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin struggling for fitness all season.

But even he could not have envisaged winning his second successive home match in the manner they did after the Toffees captain’s attempted cross caught out goalkeeper Ilan Meslier at his near post.

Everton’s long-serving Irishman is the club’s lucky charm as they have never lost in all 28 matches in which he has scored and if they can keep eking out home wins like this – which lifted them a point clear of the bottom three – then survival is a realistic possibility.

The same cannot be said for Leeds, whose 10th match without a win dropped them to 19th after fellow strugglers Southampton and Bournemouth both won.

A feeling of crisis has enveloped the club as having sacked Jesse Marsch a fortnight ago they have failed to recruit a successor and taken only one point from a possible nine.

While all their relegation rivals are finding a way of picking up the odd result Leeds are on a dangerous downward spiral and, finishing without a shot on target showed just how much work caretaker manager Michael Skubala has to do just to get them into a position to be able to fight for survival.

That is not a problem Dyche seems to have after making it two wins from two at home either side of Monday’s Merseyside derby defeat at Anfield.

But even he will admit it was more by luck than design after his right-back chased a hopeful