By Alan Baldwin
LONDON (Reuters) – Everton celebrated a breakthrough first victory of the Premier League season at Brentford on Saturday with James Tarkowski scoring against his former club in a well-deserved 3-1 win.
After a first half of many missed opportunities ended 1-1, Tarkowski headed in off Dwight McNeil’s corner after 67 minutes and England forward Dominic Calvert-Lewis made it 3-1 in the 71st off the leg of goalkeeper Mark Flekken.
The victory lifted the transformed Toffees out of the drop zone and up to 15th with four points and left Brentford, now 12th on six, waiting for their first home win of the season.
Abdoulaye Doucoure put Everton ahead in the sixth minute with a shot into the top right corner of the net after Tarkowski had headed on but Mathias Jensen levelled in the 28th from the right with an effort that went in off the far post.
The visitors could have been two or three goals up by then, with Vitaliy Mykolenko shooting straight at Mark Flekken in the 21st and Doucoure hitting the crossbar seven minutes later.
Brentford’s record signing Kevin Schade was injured in the warm-up, with Keane Lewis-Potter replacing him up front.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris)
