Everton paid the price for celebrating too much – Howard

(Reuters) – Everton were guilty of celebrating Ross Barkley’s late goal for too long as Bournemouth snatched a dramatic 3-3 draw in the eighth minute of stoppage time on Saturday, goalkeeper Tim Howard said.

Everton went into the interval 2-0 up, but Bournemouth drew level only for Barkley to strike in the fifth minute of stoppage time to send players and fans running on to the pitch in wild celebrations.

Referee Kevin Friend added on extra minutes after the pitch invasion giving Bournemouth’s Junior Stanislas the opportunity to grab an unlikely equaliser.

“Once the celebration went on too long you kind of got the feeling the time would be added on,” Howard was quoted as saying by British media.

“You want to take time celebrating but you don’t want to take too much time. I think it added some time on unfortunately. We just lacked a bit of composure. We cause chaos for other teams but let ourselves down.”

The draw saw Everton drop two places to ninth in the Premier League table, and striker Romelu Lukaku, who scored their second, also rued their lack of composure.

“You need to be focused. The referee didn’t blow the whistle, so you need to be focused until the last second of the game. We weren’t, they scored the goal and everybody is down,” he was quoted as saying by the club’s website (www.evertonfc.com).

“It’s a good learning moment for us as players because we want to evolve and become a better team.

“The result is not easy to take but we need to move forward and learn from these type of games.”

(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru. Editing by Patrick Johnston)