Our 3️⃣ points as Everton rally to pin back Chelsea's progress | OneFootball

Everton denied Chelsea a third consecutive Premier League win in a four-goal thriller on Saturday.

Here’s what we made of the action from Stamford Bridge.

Familiar failings throw Potter back in the spotlight

Despite a tumultuous start, three straight wins from all competitions already in the bank should have left Graham Potter on fairly safe ground.

Yet Chelsea’s inability to make it a hat-trick of Premier League victories places their manager under fresh scrutiny after Everton snatched a point from the jaws of near-certain defeat.

Familiar failings returned as their relegation-threatened visitors were allowed to punish the Blues’ profligacy by drawing them level twice in the space of 20 second-half minutes.

João Félix’s well-worked opener was no less than the Londoners deserved, having dominated large parts of the first half but being comfortable lulled Potter’s side into a false sense of security.

His side’s profligacy was only matched by their inability to close out the game’s final 14 minutes after Kai Havertz had restored their slender lead from the penalty spot.

There is a reason why the Blues find themselves languishing barely inside the top half of the table in a season which can only be salvaged by winning the Champions League.

Even that appears a tall order on this latest evidence – and that’s before you consider them facing the might of Real Madrid.

No Calvert-Lewin, no problem for the Toffees

With just three points separating the teams between 12th and 18th, Everton know the Premier League’s relegation battle has never been tighter.

Sean Dyche’s side had spent eight of the previous 10 match weeks in the dreaded drop zone but could have moved up to 12th in the table with their first league win at Stamford Bridge since November 1994.

They fell short of that target but substitute Ellis Simms’ late equaliser may have offered the Toffees a potential solution which extends beyond a modicum of breathing space between themselves and the bottom three.

Without injury-prone striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin for a seventh straight fixture, however, the odds of the visitors snatching the long-awaited spoils in west London were slim to say the least. Demarai Gray was again deployed in the false nine position to little avail as solutions to the missing England international continued to appear conspicuous by their absence.

But the introduction of Simms proved to be a turning point for the largely toothless visitors, who had been heavily reliant on set pieces to draw them level midway through the second half.

The 22-year-old has endured a strange homecoming since being recalled to Goodison Park from a season-long loan at Sunderland in early January and struggled to have any meaningful impact in games, notably last month’s Merseyside derby defeat to Liverpool.

His 89th-minute leveller showcased Simms’ best attributes as Chelsea’s defence paid the price for backing off as the bustling forward breezed past Kalidou Koulibaly with remarkable ease.

Evertonians have long been crying out for the young striker to be entrusted to lead the line during Calvert-Lewin’s prolonged recovery and were finally vindicated by his first goal for the club.

João Félix also makes a compelling case

Only the debate around one of Potter’s many January incomings generates as much debate at Stamford Bridge as his own long-term future.

Before Saturday, João Félix’s season-long loan move had barely scaled the impressive heights which his breakout spell with Atlético de Madrid promised with a solitary strike from his opening eight games.

There were flashes during that time but not enough to convince the Chelsea faithful that the Portugal international should be taken up as a long-term option this summer.

A compelling display against Everton, however, suggests that Félix offers plenty beyond his potentially hefty price tag and equally stratospheric expectations.

Throughout this game, he remained the hosts’ liveliest option in the final third of the pitch and was rewarded with that sweeping 52nd-minute strike to break the deadlock.

One swallow clearly does not make a summer but if Félix can build on this performance, despite the frustrating result, Potter may have stumbled upon a genuine magician.

His side will need it to unlock defences more stubborn than Everton.