Everton fell to a frustrating 1-0 away defeat at Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday, halting the momentum created by a rampant 5-1 Boxing Day victory.
The Toffees’ lack of goals was an embarrassing feat considering Brighton back-up David Button played in goal, a Fulham reject who could barely keep his place in the Championship.
Fulham supporters know Button well from his time at Craven Cottage, and the Englishman started both the 2016/17 and 2017/18 campaigns as number one in SW6.
But in both seasons, terrible individual errors from Button meant he lost his place and was relegated to the bench in favour of Marcus Bettinelli.
The Fulham faithful was delighted and shocked when Brighton swooped for Button in the summer — glad to have the goalkeeper off the books and surprised a Premier League side deemed him quality.
Button’s shakiness was on full display early on Saturday when he replaced the Asian Cup-bound Mat Ryan, as the English goalkeeper spilled a cross and gifted Everton a scoring chance.
Although Button did make a number of impressive saves later on, most notably to deny Richarlison, a team of Everton’s attacking quality really should have manufactured more quality opportunities against the shaky goalkeeper.
Unfortunately for Marco Silva’s men, Everton could only muster four shots on target all match, leaving David Button untested and gifting Brighton all three points.