Everton have stretched their unbeaten streak to five games in all competitions in the last week, with a 3-1 league win over Wigan Athletic on Saturday being followed by a 2-1 (after extra-time) League Cup victory against West Bromwich Albion. I didn’t see either game in full, so can’t comment too much, but judging by Graeme Sharp’s exasperated commentary neither performance was particularly impressive.
The departures of Yakubu Aiyegbeni, Jermaine Beckford and James Vaughan, along with the injuries suffered by Victor Anichebe and Louis Saha (who could have seen that coming?), have led to a return of the famous David Moyes 4-6-0, with Tim Cahill and Leon Osman the furthest players forward.
Argentinean striker Denis Stracqualursi did make a first start against West Brom, while Apostolos Vellios scored the deciding goal in the win over Wigan and has looked a threat from the bench, but given Moyes’ tendency to leap on any excuse to pick the most negative team imaginable it seems very unlikely that either will start away at Manchester City on Saturday.
City, who began the season looking like the Harlem Globetrotters, dropped their first points last weekend when they threw away a two-goal lead to draw at Fulham. The result could be seen to suggest that some of the mental frailties that have hampered their ability to make a meaningful title challenge in either of the last two years may still exist, but chances are they just got caught late after playing a difficult Champions League tie a few days earlier.
Edin Dzeko will likely lead an attack boasting absurdly talented players such as Sergio Aguero, Samir Nasri and the fantastic David Silva, and with City having managed 17 goals in their opening five Premier League games it’s hard to imagine Everton’s shaky defence keeping them out. The fact Carlos Tevez, Mario Balotelli and Adam Johnson are struggling to get on the pitch says everything about the level of firepower available to Roberto Mancini.
If there is cause for optimism it comes in the form of Mancini’s burning desire to unleash his inner arl arse and set up his team with caution. Chances are that he’ll sacrifice one of his usual front four in favour of using James Milner to double up on Leighton Baines, and he may also be tempted to add an extra holding player to a midfield that has been dominated by Marouane Fellaini in the past.
Last season Everton put on a smash and grab clinic akin to those Rafael Benitez used to pull off in the Champions League with depressing regularity during his time at Liverpool, and it will take something similar just to get a draw this time around. Fulham showed that City can still be broken down by a high-tempo, pressuring approach, but the key to making it work at the Etihad Stadium will be figuring when to sit and when to push.
A lot will be depend on whether Royston Drenthe and Seamus Coleman can use their pace to get in behind City’s defence and offer consistent outlets when Everton are weathering the storms that will inevitably come. If Cahill leads the line then he’s going to have to be intelligent with how he uses his energy for as long as it takes before Moyes sends on Vellios or Stracqualursi. He won’t get much joy out of Lescott or Kompany if he tries to brawl with them over every high ball, but while they’re both comfortable in possession neither are anything special with their distribution and can be pressured into mistakes – I know Everton can’t say much with the Super Smash (it out of play) Bros. at centre half, but the point still stands.
I don’t know how much Everton’s recent record against City counts for when they continue to improve while Moyes’ team declines each year, but despite their transformation into a very, very good side they still have some weaknesses. Neither Gael Clichy nor Aleksandar Kolarov are as good defensively as they are going forward, and Micah Richards’ positioning makes Sylvain Distin look like a prime Jaap Stam. Everyone knows Gareth Barry is awful, but as Yaya Toure seems to do the running of two men I’m not sure if it’ll make a difference.
Moyes has gotten the better of Mancini three times on the spin, but to be honest it’s hard to see Everton getting a result here without a large slice of luck to go with a perfect game plan. My biggest worry is Aguero, as he’s the sort of skilful, low centre of gravity player that Phil Jagielka seems to struggle badly with.
Judging by recent performances it’s hard to predict anything other than a loss against a team with a far superior set of players, but Everton put in their strongest performances against the better teams last season, so you never know.
I reckon the Everton line up will be: Howard; Hibbert, Jagielka, Distin, Baines; Coleman, Fellaini, Osman, Rodwell, Drenthe; Cahill.
Friday 23 September 2011
Monday 12 September 2011
Everton 2-2 Aston Villa
A late goal from Gabriel Agbonlahor cost Everton what would have been a well-deserved first home league win of the season as Aston Villa somehow escaped from Goodison Park with a 2-2 draw.
The fun started early with what has been reported as anything between 650-1500 disgruntled Evertonians making a peaceful demonstration against the board in the form of a short march from behind Everton One to the directors’ entrance at the ground. It was hardly 1917 St. Petersburg but a start at least – the highlight definitely being a clown walking around with what I can only assume was the world’s first and only John Heitinga cake.
Despite suggestions that protesting would create a negative feeling that would seep into the stadium and kill the players, it ended up being one of the better atmospheres for a standard fixture in quite a while, especially considering the attendance was the lowest for a Saturday 3pm kick-off in nine years.
Everton started brightly and dominated possession throughout the first half against a Villa team whose plan of attack seemed to be built around Emile Heskey winning headers against Leighton Baines, which in fairness worked for Arsenal when they did the same thing using Nicklas Bendtner two years ago. Unfortunately for Alex McLeish his master plan was thwarted when the shock of playing a decent through-pass caused Heskey to pull a hamstring.
Seamus Coleman returned to the starting line up after an injury lay-off and looked great against ‘The Man of a Thousand Broken Ankles’ Steven Warnock. Coleman’s pace and aggressive running is a breath of fresh air in a team that is generally slow and methodical going forward, and though he was out on his feet towards the end, his was one of the day’s most encouraging performances.
Leon Osman put the finishing touch on a nice move to open the scoring on 19 minutes. It looked for a second like Tim Cahill had cost Osman a decent shooting opportunity when he took the ball off his team mate’s toes on the edge of the box, but a clever reverse pass from the Australian allowed Osman to guide an excellent left-footed finish beyond the reach of Shay Given.
Soon after the opener came a quite surreal moment as Bill Kenwright’s face was shown on the big screen for about 15 seconds. The sight of Kenwright, who gave a bizarre sob story interview in the Daily Mail that was put out on the morning of the match, was initially met with a chorus of boos, only for a fair chunk of the ground to counter with a sustained round of applause.
It was so surprising that the cameras went back again to make sure it had really happened, and lo and behold, the man who ring-fenced £30m for the Kings Dock and provided us with an effectively free, world-class stadium received a warm clap. Score one for the Everton PR machine.
After the break everyone was reminded that there was a football match going on when Stilian Petrov curled a cracking effort past Tim Howard on 63 minutes for 1-1. The crowd and players responded immediately though, and within six minutes Everton’s lead was restored after the awful Fabian Delph made a ridiculous challenge on Phil Jagielka and Baines converted the resulting penalty.
Everton should have also had a penalty in the first half when Baines was blatantly tripped by substitute Barry Bannan, only for the referee to somehow fail to spot a foul that happened no more than five yards in front of him. It was a decision that David Moyes and his team would go on to rue after Agbonlahor’s 83rd minute equaliser stole a point for the visitors.
Agbonlahor fed to ball out wide to Mark Albrighton and made his way into the box where he took up a position in the middle of Jagielka, Howard and Sylvain Distin. Tony Hibbert, in because Phil Neville was presumably too upset by the despicable actions of the Blue Union and not in the right from of mind to play, made no attempt at closing him down and his cross was able to pick out Agbonlahor, who took advantage of Distin’s complete failure to react and headed Villa’s second.
It was an overall strong performance that deserved three points, but I suppose Everton were due some bad karma after mugging Blackburn at Ewood Park last time out. It was surprising to hear Moyes and Cahill criticising the fans in their post-match interviews (something you never see from Alex Ferguson or any of the United players), and all indications are that Everton are looking to marginalise the Blue Union by turning the rest of the fan base against them.
Hopefully the board will name a price sooner rather than later and we can find out exactly how hard they’re trying to sell the club.
The fun started early with what has been reported as anything between 650-1500 disgruntled Evertonians making a peaceful demonstration against the board in the form of a short march from behind Everton One to the directors’ entrance at the ground. It was hardly 1917 St. Petersburg but a start at least – the highlight definitely being a clown walking around with what I can only assume was the world’s first and only John Heitinga cake.
Despite suggestions that protesting would create a negative feeling that would seep into the stadium and kill the players, it ended up being one of the better atmospheres for a standard fixture in quite a while, especially considering the attendance was the lowest for a Saturday 3pm kick-off in nine years.
Everton started brightly and dominated possession throughout the first half against a Villa team whose plan of attack seemed to be built around Emile Heskey winning headers against Leighton Baines, which in fairness worked for Arsenal when they did the same thing using Nicklas Bendtner two years ago. Unfortunately for Alex McLeish his master plan was thwarted when the shock of playing a decent through-pass caused Heskey to pull a hamstring.
Seamus Coleman returned to the starting line up after an injury lay-off and looked great against ‘The Man of a Thousand Broken Ankles’ Steven Warnock. Coleman’s pace and aggressive running is a breath of fresh air in a team that is generally slow and methodical going forward, and though he was out on his feet towards the end, his was one of the day’s most encouraging performances.
Leon Osman put the finishing touch on a nice move to open the scoring on 19 minutes. It looked for a second like Tim Cahill had cost Osman a decent shooting opportunity when he took the ball off his team mate’s toes on the edge of the box, but a clever reverse pass from the Australian allowed Osman to guide an excellent left-footed finish beyond the reach of Shay Given.
Soon after the opener came a quite surreal moment as Bill Kenwright’s face was shown on the big screen for about 15 seconds. The sight of Kenwright, who gave a bizarre sob story interview in the Daily Mail that was put out on the morning of the match, was initially met with a chorus of boos, only for a fair chunk of the ground to counter with a sustained round of applause.
It was so surprising that the cameras went back again to make sure it had really happened, and lo and behold, the man who ring-fenced £30m for the Kings Dock and provided us with an effectively free, world-class stadium received a warm clap. Score one for the Everton PR machine.
After the break everyone was reminded that there was a football match going on when Stilian Petrov curled a cracking effort past Tim Howard on 63 minutes for 1-1. The crowd and players responded immediately though, and within six minutes Everton’s lead was restored after the awful Fabian Delph made a ridiculous challenge on Phil Jagielka and Baines converted the resulting penalty.
Everton should have also had a penalty in the first half when Baines was blatantly tripped by substitute Barry Bannan, only for the referee to somehow fail to spot a foul that happened no more than five yards in front of him. It was a decision that David Moyes and his team would go on to rue after Agbonlahor’s 83rd minute equaliser stole a point for the visitors.
Agbonlahor fed to ball out wide to Mark Albrighton and made his way into the box where he took up a position in the middle of Jagielka, Howard and Sylvain Distin. Tony Hibbert, in because Phil Neville was presumably too upset by the despicable actions of the Blue Union and not in the right from of mind to play, made no attempt at closing him down and his cross was able to pick out Agbonlahor, who took advantage of Distin’s complete failure to react and headed Villa’s second.
It was an overall strong performance that deserved three points, but I suppose Everton were due some bad karma after mugging Blackburn at Ewood Park last time out. It was surprising to hear Moyes and Cahill criticising the fans in their post-match interviews (something you never see from Alex Ferguson or any of the United players), and all indications are that Everton are looking to marginalise the Blue Union by turning the rest of the fan base against them.
Hopefully the board will name a price sooner rather than later and we can find out exactly how hard they’re trying to sell the club.
Friday 9 September 2011
Everton vs. Aston Villa preview
Everton will look to record their first league victory over Aston Villa since March 2006 when Alex McLeish brings his unbeaten team to Goodison Park on Saturday.
Darren Bent, who scored twice in this fixture last season, is Villa’s only major injury worry, and McLeish will give him right up until the last moment to prove his fitness. Hopefully Bent won’t make it, as his clever movement is tailor-made to take advantage of Sylvain Distin’s complete lack of positional sense.
If Bent plays he’ll likely be partnered by long-standing figure of ridicule Emile Heskey, whose stupid DJ celebration represented the nadir of several Walter Smith/early David Moyes derby day farces. How Heskey is still playing Premier League football is beyond me; he’s a big, fat pudding and Martin O’Neill should have been sacked on the spot for spending £6m on him when Villa were 3rd or 4th in the table.
Despite losing Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, who were their two best players last season, Villa still seem to have a decent side. Charles N’Zogbia and Shay Given would have been great signings for most teams, while Alan Hutton and Jermaine Jenas (who is Jack Rodwell’s Dorian Gray) are improvements on the departed Luke Young and Nigel Reo-Coker.
Villa set up to play on the counter, which is worrying because Everton struggle with teams that are willing to sit tight and wait for an opportunity to break. The usual result is Mike Arteta, Marouane Fellaini and Rodwell passing sideways between themselves just over the halfway line until either Leighton Baines does something brilliant or Phil Neville does something shit. However, now that Arteta has moved to Arsenal there’s also the third option of John Heitinga playing a pointless diagonal pass and then posing like he’s Ronald Koeman whilst waiting for applause.
With Jermaine Beckford and Yakubu Aiyegbeni sold and Victor Anichebe injured, the onus is on Louis Saha, who is almost always either carrying a knock or just plain unfit, and Tim Cahill to provide the firepower for the foreseeable future. Denis Stracqualursi, top-scorer in Argentina last season, has come in on loan but it seems unlikely that David Moyes will throw him straight into the starting XI. If Saha doesn’t play it’ll probably end up being Cahill and Fellaini up front.
Moyes’ biggest concern will be the fitness of Baines, who is easily Everton’s best player these days, as the left-back was sent home from England duty early with a tweaked hamstring. The neither-footed Phil Neville can switch to the left easily enough and provide reasonable cover defensively, but it’s difficult to see Everton creating many chances for what is an increasingly static forward line without Baines.
Everton’s best chance of winning this is by dominating the centre of midfield. Fellaini is much better than anything Villa have, and Ross Barkley, who’ll likely start wide, has the ability to commit opposition players and make things happen. Diniyar Bilyaletdinov is also available after suspension, but it’ll probably take a few more first team injuries before the Russian non-entity finds himself starting.
Royston Drenthe, a deadline day loan signing from Real Madrid, will probably start on the bench and may play some part. He was brilliant for Holland at the U-21 Euro tournament a few years ago and looked good at Hercules last season until a pay dispute led to him going on strike. Fortunately Everton haven’t yet reached the point where they can’t afford to pay players’ wages, so hopefully he’ll get his head down and show why he was such a highly-touted prospect at Feyenoord.
It’ll be interesting to see how many people turn out for the Blue Union’s peaceful protest march, which begins behind the megastore at 2pm. Though many Evertonians remain apathetic to what goes on behind the scenes, an increasing number are coming around to the idea that the current board isn’t going to jump unless it’s pushed.
Seven successive transfer windows without purchasing a first team player isn’t good enough when the team is slipping to a point where it’s no longer capable of even reaching the Europa League, never mind threatening the top four. Despite the conveniently timed news that Kenwright will be meeting three potential buyers next week, I find it hard to believe that someone who came across as a deluded lunatic in his meeting with the Blue Union reps is the right man to make the sale.
Saturday is looking like a pretty big day all round for the club. It’s difficult to make a prediction without knowing whether Baines or Bent will feature, so I’ll just say that if Tony Hibbert, Neville and Heitinga all start then Everton are in trouble.
Darren Bent, who scored twice in this fixture last season, is Villa’s only major injury worry, and McLeish will give him right up until the last moment to prove his fitness. Hopefully Bent won’t make it, as his clever movement is tailor-made to take advantage of Sylvain Distin’s complete lack of positional sense.
If Bent plays he’ll likely be partnered by long-standing figure of ridicule Emile Heskey, whose stupid DJ celebration represented the nadir of several Walter Smith/early David Moyes derby day farces. How Heskey is still playing Premier League football is beyond me; he’s a big, fat pudding and Martin O’Neill should have been sacked on the spot for spending £6m on him when Villa were 3rd or 4th in the table.
Despite losing Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, who were their two best players last season, Villa still seem to have a decent side. Charles N’Zogbia and Shay Given would have been great signings for most teams, while Alan Hutton and Jermaine Jenas (who is Jack Rodwell’s Dorian Gray) are improvements on the departed Luke Young and Nigel Reo-Coker.
Villa set up to play on the counter, which is worrying because Everton struggle with teams that are willing to sit tight and wait for an opportunity to break. The usual result is Mike Arteta, Marouane Fellaini and Rodwell passing sideways between themselves just over the halfway line until either Leighton Baines does something brilliant or Phil Neville does something shit. However, now that Arteta has moved to Arsenal there’s also the third option of John Heitinga playing a pointless diagonal pass and then posing like he’s Ronald Koeman whilst waiting for applause.
With Jermaine Beckford and Yakubu Aiyegbeni sold and Victor Anichebe injured, the onus is on Louis Saha, who is almost always either carrying a knock or just plain unfit, and Tim Cahill to provide the firepower for the foreseeable future. Denis Stracqualursi, top-scorer in Argentina last season, has come in on loan but it seems unlikely that David Moyes will throw him straight into the starting XI. If Saha doesn’t play it’ll probably end up being Cahill and Fellaini up front.
Moyes’ biggest concern will be the fitness of Baines, who is easily Everton’s best player these days, as the left-back was sent home from England duty early with a tweaked hamstring. The neither-footed Phil Neville can switch to the left easily enough and provide reasonable cover defensively, but it’s difficult to see Everton creating many chances for what is an increasingly static forward line without Baines.
Everton’s best chance of winning this is by dominating the centre of midfield. Fellaini is much better than anything Villa have, and Ross Barkley, who’ll likely start wide, has the ability to commit opposition players and make things happen. Diniyar Bilyaletdinov is also available after suspension, but it’ll probably take a few more first team injuries before the Russian non-entity finds himself starting.
Royston Drenthe, a deadline day loan signing from Real Madrid, will probably start on the bench and may play some part. He was brilliant for Holland at the U-21 Euro tournament a few years ago and looked good at Hercules last season until a pay dispute led to him going on strike. Fortunately Everton haven’t yet reached the point where they can’t afford to pay players’ wages, so hopefully he’ll get his head down and show why he was such a highly-touted prospect at Feyenoord.
It’ll be interesting to see how many people turn out for the Blue Union’s peaceful protest march, which begins behind the megastore at 2pm. Though many Evertonians remain apathetic to what goes on behind the scenes, an increasing number are coming around to the idea that the current board isn’t going to jump unless it’s pushed.
Seven successive transfer windows without purchasing a first team player isn’t good enough when the team is slipping to a point where it’s no longer capable of even reaching the Europa League, never mind threatening the top four. Despite the conveniently timed news that Kenwright will be meeting three potential buyers next week, I find it hard to believe that someone who came across as a deluded lunatic in his meeting with the Blue Union reps is the right man to make the sale.
Saturday is looking like a pretty big day all round for the club. It’s difficult to make a prediction without knowing whether Baines or Bent will feature, so I’ll just say that if Tony Hibbert, Neville and Heitinga all start then Everton are in trouble.
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