Everton 2-0 Palace: when the team with less xG wins anyway

Everton beat Crystal Palace 2-0, but the expected-goals board reads the other way: Palace 2.04, Everton 1.16. On chance quality Palace were the better side, yet they went home with nothing. This was a smash-and-grab dressed up as a comfortable home win — and a reminder that xG describes the game, it does not referee it.

Palace had 58% of the ball, 11 shots and eight of them inside the box, and still could not beat Jordan Pickford, who made four saves. Everton were tighter and sharper: 16 shots, five on target, and two taken when it mattered. The difference between 2.04 xG and zero goals is finishing and goalkeeping — and on the day Everton had both edges.

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall broke the deadlock on 42 minutes, finished off a move started by Harrison Armstrong. Eleven minutes into the second half Thierno Barry doubled it, teed up by Iliman Ndiaye. Both goals came from Everton’s more direct, penalty-box-focused approach — fewer touches, more end product.

For Everton, three points and a clean sheet paper over a chance-creation gap they will not want to repeat every week; ride variance too long and it bites back. For Palace, the performance is genuinely encouraging — 2.04 xG on the road is title-of-the-underlying-numbers stuff — but they must convert that pressure into goals before the results start to match the process.