Everton fight tooth and nail to ensure Premier League survival

Unbridled relief for Everton, gut-wrenching realisation for Leicester City and Leeds United.

The Merseyside club did what they had to on a frayed final day of the 2022/23 season, just about squeezing past Bournemouth at Goodison Park to persist in the Premier League. The 1-0 win, secured by Abdoulaye Doucoure’s emphatic second-half strike, ensured a 70th successive top-flight campaign was theirs.

Leicester and Leeds, meanwhile, slid from the vista view. Needing Everton to slip and themselves to defeat West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur, respectively, neither got what they wanted.

Everton’s win rendered redundant those other results. Nevertheless, Leeds were lanced 4-1 at home to Spurs, but to their credit Leicester did what they had to. They saw off West Ham at the King Power, triumphing 2-1. Yet it proved futile.

Relegation confirmed, Dean Smith’s men became only the second Premier League champions after Blackburn Rovers to drop from the top tier of English football. Seven years on from their crowning glory, the feat that shocked the football world, Leicester were stunned. They were left reeling.

Everton, of course, had been here before. For a third time in three decades, they survived a potential final-day demotion, coming through the 100 minutes and more to emulated Graham Stuart and Co from 1994, and Gareth Farrelly et of four years later.

All afternoon, across the three teams staring into the abyss, the nerves were never far from the surface. Leeds, though, were almost out of it from the off. On two minutes, they afforded Harry Kane too much space inside their penalty area, leaving the Spurs striker to finish with aplomb - his 29th goal of the season.

He would later add another, not long after Pedro Porro had