Aston Villa delivered their usual Everton sucker punch late on to deprive Everton a deserved three points.
Everton took the lead on two occasions, through goals from Leon Osman and Leighton Baines – only to be pegged back by goals from Gabriel Agbonlahor and Stiliyan Petrov.
David Moyes made five changes to side that fortuitously beat Blackburn at Ewood Park 1-0 a fortnight ago. Three of the changes were forced, one being the high profile departure of Mikel Arteta, and the other two of the forced changes coming on the back of midweek international duty injuries to Anichebe and Heitinga.
The optional changes saw Bilyaletdinov and Hibbert were brought in to the starting eleven, to the sacrifice of Barkley and Neville who were joined on the bench with new signings Drenthe and Stracqualursi.
Everton came flying out of the blocks and opened the scoring on 19 minutes, after some tidy passing, Leon Osman stroked the ball home from 10 yards with a calm first-time finish.
Villa levelled against the run of play just after the hour mark, courtesy of Stiliyan Petrov’s stunning 30 yard strike.
Everton regained a deserved lead just five minutes later through a Leighton Baines penalty after Fabian Delph brought down Phil Jagielka.
As Everton looked destined to record their first Premiership win in ten attempts against the Midlands side, Agbonlahor took advantage of the static Slyvain Distin to head in Marc Albrighton´s cross on 83 minutes to make it 2-2.
Everton pushed hard for a winner in stoppage time, only to be denied by Shay Given who made a superb save from Apostolos Vellios.