Aston Villa vs. Everton instant recap: Poor performance chases fans before protest can

What's left to say? Everton beast Aston Villa today 1-3 at Villa Park. The planned #OutTheDoorOn74 protest was hampered by low attendance and the fact that the Toffees had a three-goal advantage before the planned walk-out time. Plenty of people left, but already, it seemed, the empty seats outnumbered the filled one.

And how did it all go down? Aston Villa started with five in the back, including three centre backs. The objective was to prevent the type of stupid goals that have plagued the team all season, and that was blown away within five minutes. With three centre backs (Richards, Clark, and Lescott) in the lineup, Everton whipped a corner into the Villa box and scored when (centre back) Ramiro Funes Mori was left entirely unmarked and could score easily.

Then, in the 30th minute, Aaron Lennon (also left largely unmarked) managed to slot a ball between the legs of a centre back and Brad Guzan. Two nutmegs, one goal. Villa had no answer for Everton and despite the fact that the Merseyside team weren't all that great they were cruising to a victory.

In the second half, Romelu Lukaku did the seemingly inevitable and scored, giving Everton the three-goal lead and chasing fans out of Villa Park before the protest could even do its job. A 79th-minute consolation from Rudy Gestede was never going to be enough and Villa limped away impotently to yet another loss.

What makes today even harder to accept is the fact that Villa actually looked decent in the final third at times. But how can they be expected to do much when the defense (bolstered with one extra player today) can't even be asked to remove their heads from their rear ends? This club is a shambles and relegation is only a matter of weeks away now. Every match feels more and more meaningless.