Demarai Gray pounces to salvage draw for Everton against Nottingham Forest

The raucous away section was in the midst of telling Frank Lampard he was getting sacked in the morning when Demarai Gray, another target for the Nottingham Forest faithful on account of his Leicester connections, rescued Everton’s first point of the season two minutes from time. The draw was merited, but of little consolation to the Everton manager or his opposite number, Steve Cooper.

Forest were on the cusp of a second successive Premier League win, Everton a third consecutive defeat, when Jordan Pickford prised open the visitors’ defence and sent Gray scampering through to equalise Brennan Johnson’s 81st-minute opener. The timing of Forest’s breakthrough plus their late defensive lapse will have galled Cooper, although his team’s overall display was encouraging. Everton, however, are fulfilling all the pre-season predictions of another troubled campaign.

Lampard’s side started brightly, with Alex Iwobi shining on his 100th appearance for the club and the driving runs of Anthony Gordon and Gray putting Forest on the back foot. Salomón Rondón was handed his first league start under Lampard as the Everton manager abandoned his enforced and ineffective frontline of three wingers in favour of a physical presence. As with the first two games of the season, however, Everton’s attacking threat petered out once the visitors improved in possession. They dropped deeper as the first half progressed and, with Rondón isolated, had no outlet.

Gordon received a warm ovation from the home crowd at the end of a week in which Everton rejected two bigs from Chelsea for the homegrown talent. The 21-year-old forced the first save of the game from Dean Henderson with a rising drive from 20 yards although it was Gray’s set-piece delivery