Everton vs Burnley match report: Kevin Mirallas scores match-winner but Belgian lucky not to join Ashley Barnes in seeing red

Everton 1 Burnley 0: Clarets fume at referee Mike Jones after he awards Everton a penalty and sends off Barnes, only to let Mirallas off after a shocking tackle

Kevin Mirallas shoots at the second time of asking to score for Everton (Getty Images)

Burnley once more were nil. If the Premier League’s bottom club do go down, it will not be through lack of fight but a shortage of football’s most basic commodity, goals.

Barnes may have controversially avoided punishment for a wild tackle on Chelsea's Nemanja Matic back in February but there was no escape as two ill-advised challenges - one which did not even connect with an opponent - saw him sent off in first-half added time at Goodison Park.

Burnley were already trailing to Kevin Mirallas's goal and with 10 men they could not claw back that deficit, losing 1-0.

Everton ought to have won by at least a rugby score. Nowhere was this casualness better demonstrated than when Aaron Lennon was awarded a penalty for a tackle by David Jones on the 18-yard line.

Virtually everyone at Goodison expected Leighton Baines, who had scored 15 of his 16 spot-kicks, to have taken it. Instead, up stepped Ross Barkley. The ease with which Heaton saved suggests it will be a while before the invitation is extended again.

Ashley Barnes clashes with Ross Barkley for possession (Getty Images)

Kevin Mirallas’s goal that saw him take two goes at finishing off Seamus Coleman’s cross ensured Everton’s third missed penalty of the season – more than any other team - did not matter as much.

Mirallas celebrates his match-winning goal with his team-mates (Getty Images)

It would, however, have mattered to Dyche that the Belgian was not dismissed for a brutish challenge on George Boyd. “It is impossible for him to stay on,” he said. “We are not the type to surround a referee; maybe we should.”

Burnley had by then lost Ashley Barnes to a second yellow card on half-time. The first was an attempted tackle from behind on James McCarthy that did not make contact, although it might have been a straight red card if he had.

Ashley Barnes was sent-off on the stroke of half-time (Getty Images)

Line-ups:

Everton: (4-2-3-1) Howard; Coleman, Stones, Jagielka, Baines; McCarthy (Besic, 88), Barry; Lennon, Barkley, Mirallas (Lukaku, 61); Koné (Naismith, 80).

Burnley: (4-4-2) Heaton; Trippier, Duff, Shackell, Mee; Boyd (Wallace, 84), Arfield, Jones (Taylor, 84), Barnes; Vokes (Jutkiewicz, 59), Ings.

Referee: Mike Jones

Man of the match: Baines (Everton)

Match rating: 4/10