James Tarkowski says Everton must recover and be prepared for "one more final" as the Blues' bid for Premier League survival heads to the final day of the campaign after a dramatic 1-1 draw at Wolves.
Hwang Hee-Chan opened the scoring for the hosts against the run of play 11 minutes before the end of a damaging first half, which started brightly for the Blues but ended with them trailing and without Nathan Patterson and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who both limped off with hamstring injuries.
Everton - already patched up in the absence of regular left-backs Vitalii Mykolenko and Ruben Vinagre and deputies Ben Godfrey and Seamus Coleman - switched to a 5-3-2 for the second period in a bid to break Wolves' stubborn defence that had already recorded 10 top-flight clean sheets so far this term.
It took until the 99th minute for that blow to come, as Yerry Mina prodded home from close range to send 3,010 travelling Evertonians into raptures and earn what could prove to be a crucial point.
"[It was ] just madness, the last 15/20 minutes of the game," reflected Tarkowski. "It’s a hot day we were just attacking, desperate to get a goal we were just throwing people forward. Finally got a good ball into the box, tried to keep it alive and that could be a massive goal for us.
"We'll recover ready for next weekend now. One more big final to go."
Discussing the impact of losing two of his teammates to injury in the first half, Tarkowski continued: "I thought we started the game ever so well, losing Dom and Patto to injury just changed the dynamic of the game.
"They scored one counter attack and, like Wolves do, they hit you with the counter.
"I thought we did pretty well overall. Just keep going and keep going and we finally got the reward."
Tarkowski also hailed Dwight McNeil, who began the contest in an unfamiliar role of left-back before being switched to wing-back in the second period.
"Yeah, we’re just losing key players, to be honest, and have lost a fair few full-backs now," said Tarkowski. "People are playing out of position a little bit... Dwight moved to left-back today and played unbelievable against Adama Traore for the first half.
"It’s part of the game, it’s a squad game and lads who have maybe been out of the team for a little bit have got to come in a do a job."
