Everton 3 Watford 2

'Chaos is a ladder.' - Petyr Baelish

David Unsworth recorded his fist victory as interim manager, beating Watford 3-2 in front of a Goodison Park crowd that was well and truly put through the Everton wringer.

Having consulted the I Ching and been advised that in order to go around, one must go through, Unsworth abandoned all semblance of width; picking Beni Baningime, Idrissa Gana Gueye, Tom Davies, Wayne Rooney and Gylfi Sigurdsson in what must have been the narrowest formation since King Leonidas went to the Thermopylae pass looking for a point. Phil Jagielka took over from Ashley Williams in the role of defender who the opposition targets mercilessly, starting alongside Jonjoe Kenny, Michael Keane and an increasingly creaking Leighton Baines, with Jordan Pickford in goal and Oumar Niasse leading the line as only he can.

The first half was predictably dire, as the Blues moved forward with a tentativeness that spoke to a subconscious fear that in the likely event of an attack breaking down, there was no chance of anyone catching the visitors' rapid front three if they should break away on the counter. The best example of this came when Jagielka attempted to get touch-tight to Andre Gray, only to be rolled with the kind of ease that match-fixing allegations are made of. This led to a straight foot race between Pickford and Richarlison in which there was only ever going to be one winner, but thankfully the otherwise excellent Brazilian shot wide of an empty net after running beyond the stranded goalkeeper.

With the only meaningful chance of the first half having fallen somewhat fortuitously to Baines, it was surprising to see the team emerge unchanged after the break. Less surprising, however, was the continuation of this season's theme of not only failing to learn from mistakes, but repeating them at the nearest opportunity. This episode featured Jagielka inexplicably trying to get up Gray's arse again, getting rolled again, and Richarlison scoring after Rooney allowed Kiko Femenia to pick up a poor clearance and feed the ball back into the box; lighting the touch paper for one of the maddest halves in recent memory.

After Christian Kabasele put the Hornets into what looked to be an unassailable 2-0 lead - heading in unmarked from a corner, naturally - Niasse took the call for a return of the Dogs of War spirit a bit too literally, deciding that the best course of action was to injure visiting goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes, and thus force Marco Silva to send on hopeless backup Orestis Karneziz. The Black Mamba's trap was set, and it wasn't long before his unorthodox approach to pressing again paid dividends, as he pounced on a moment of hesitation between Karneziz and Miguel Britos. Honestly, watching him play, it's almost as though the last thing that Premier League centre halves expect to encounter is an opponent running his hardest at every turn.

Everton drew level seven minutes later through substitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin's unchallenged header from a Baines corner, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Goodison was very much rocking again; and you dared wonder if there could be light at the end of the tunnel when, with normal time almost up, Jose Holebas slipped over in front of Aaron Lennon and referee Graham Scott blew for a penalty. Having already produced a dangerous set-piece delivery that led directly to a goal, Baines again rolled back the years by burying his spot-kick beyond the reach of the debuting goalkeeper - who for all the piss-taking actually made a valiant attempt at getting a glove on the ball.

The 12 minutes of stoppage time that resulted from injuries to Gomes and Kabasele suddenly didn't look so appealing, and it was with some degree of inevitability that Everton contrived to concede a penalty of their own at the opposite end. 'We're going down,' was the consensus when Richarlison picked up the ball, but then former blue boo boy Tom Cleverley pulled rank as Watford captain for the day, and proceeded to take one of the jargest penalties this side of Fiorentina 2008.

Absolute farce.