Wednesday 22 April 2009

Everton Secure Return To Wembley

Everton will make their first FA Cup final appearance in fourteen years after beating Manchester United 4-2 on penalties at Wembley. The shoot-out followed 120 minutes of drab action in which both sides struggled to carve out clear-cut chances, with Danny Welbeck’s unsuccessful second-half penalty appeal the only real talking point.

Sir Alex Ferguson claimed that his decision to field a shadow team was taken out of fear for his star players’ well-being as he echoed Arsene Wenger’s view that the pitch at the FA’s £800m stadium is not good enough to host top-level football. Wenger had blamed the slow, spongy texture of Wembley’s much-maligned turf for his side’s failure to beat Chelsea in the weekend’s first semi final, re-opening the debate over whether or not the FA’s means of paying for Wembley through renting it out for events that require the pitch to be constantly pulled up and re-laid effects its ability to serve as England’s national stadium.

Everton manager David Moyes agreed with Ferguson’s comments regarding the standard of Wembley’s playing surface and the adverse effect that it had on the quality of the weekend’s semi finals. Moyes’ side were poor for large parts of Sunday’s encounter but that should not take away from the sense of achievement surrounding the club’s first major final appearance of the new millennium.

It looked as though Everton were doomed to suffer the heart-ache of another penalty shoot-out loss after Tim Cahill smashed the first spot-kick high over Ben Foster’s crossbar, evoking memories of last season’s UEFA Cup quarter final loss to Fiorentina. But United substitute Dimitar Berbatov immediately cancelled out the Australian’s miss when his tame effort rolled straight into the legs of Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard.

Berbatov’s failure gave renewed hope and voice to the Everton hordes and they roared as Leighton Baines made it 1-0 with an expertly placed shot which was followed by Tim Howard making an excellent save from United’s stand-in captain Rio Ferdinand. Phil Neville put Everton 2-0 up with a coolly taken penalty before ‘man of the match’ Nemanja Vidic got United off the mark with a low drive that deflected in off Howard’s right post.

Fine strikes from James Vaughan and Anderson maintained the one goal difference until Everton ‘player of the season’ contender Phil Jagielka stepped up to exorcise the demons of his crucial penalty miss against Fiortentina thirteen months ago with a drilled effort to Foster’s left side.

Everton will return to Wembley on May 30th to play Guus Hiddink’s Chelsea, meaning that should Moyes’ side win the FA Cup they will have beaten four of the Premier League’s current top five in doing so. With Mikel Arteta and Yakubu Aiyegbeni set to miss the final through long-term injuries, Moyes will hope that perennial sicknotes James Vaughan and Louis Saha can stay injury-free over the next five weeks as his heavily depleted squad can ill-afford any more casualties.