Everton report: I have seen Jon Stead score a Sunderland goal

Imagine you go to the West Ham away game last season. You watch us beat them with almost arrogant ease. Then you head for Trafalgar Square for the celebration. With a can in each hand, you slip over and hit your head against one of the fountains and fall into a coma. At the beginning of April you come round (yes, I know I have nicked this off Dallas, but stay with me – JR’s brother is not going to step out of the shower) but there is no-one to tell you how the lads have been getting on. You flick through the TV stations and find a dodgy Norwegian channel (with Norwegian commentary obviously so you still don’t know how things are going generally). You think “Everton – they had just qualified for the Champions League. This is going to be a tough one; I hope the lads are up for it.”

How would you have felt at the end of the game? I think you’d be feeling pretty upbeat. With performances and results like this, we must have kept up and improved upon last season. We must certainly be top half. Maybe pushing for Europe? When you get told what has in fact happened of course the shock sends you back into coma.

This is really only the second game this season where we can say we were happy with both the performance and the result (West Brom was good fun, but not much of a performance). I don’t know where we pulled this one from: maybe that motivational coach chappy? maybe just relaxing as we know we are down. But this was, shock, horror - an enjoyable game. All over the park as well as collectively we played well. Davis made a few good stops and actually came out for the ball (and got it) on a number of occasions. OK, he was useless for the first goal. I still think he is scared of Breen. While Breen rightly left it, I think his mere presence there put off Davis. Hoyte at right back looked like the player he was earlier on and not the completely useless plank he has tended to seem in some of his more recent appearances. Readers of a delicate disposition should skip the next sentence. Breen was rather good. He commanded the defence rather than just berated it, cleared a couple off the line and made some intelligent distributing passes. I am old enough to remember when we used to like Gary Breen – this was what he was like then. Danny Collins was still no good. McCartney was canny, if still not the pre-injury colossus of my memory (my memory is as about as reliable as a Government statement mind you). Delap I am getting to really like. Despite playing out of position on the left wing, he had a great game and is going to be excellent for us in the Championship. Leadbitter was the sort of player others have raved about but I have not been able to uncover. He was fighting, snarling and passing to men in red and white shirts. For some this is an insult, but not to me – his performance reminded me of a red and white striped Lee Clark (although unlike Clarky young Grant didn’t do the badge kissing bit). Whitehead was OK (although to be fair his ball in for Delap’s goal was excellent) – but again nothing as strong as our guy coming out of his coma might have expected based on his Championship season. Lawrence was just Lawrence. Either you like him and think he is Premiership class. Or you just think he is Lawrence and will be OK in the Championship, but no more than that. I am definitely in the latter group. Brown wasn’t really up to much – but Stead, well he is just a goal machine.

We’d actually started OK with Delap having a useful looping shot that looked close from our angle (which admittedly was crap) then we did our usual sloppy concession. However, the pleasing thing is that we pulled ourselves back and fought. The goal we have waited nine months for came from a Leadbitter left wing corner. As it came down (might have been flicked on) it came to Stead at the far post who knocked it in. He and the rest of the team were delighted. We actually didn’t know how it had happened though. From our angle we couldn’t see what had gone on. Various theories were put forward, including him heading it, it coming off his knee and a bounce off all body parts in between. In fact as couch potatoes will know he actually used his foot. Who would have thought it? The rest of the match was taken up with chants of “Jon Stead, Jon Stead, Jonny, Jonny Stead, He gets the ball, He scores a goal, Jonny Jonny Stead” – including when he had to come over to the touchline in front of us to get treatment, which he found amusing.

Of course we let in the second goal, which if not quite as sloppy was still annoyingly soft, in order to come out for the second half attacking the goal right in front of us. Everton were fairly strong – although with no vocal encouragement from their crowd – another once noisy group who seemed to have taken the Premiership vow of silence. But as the half went on we got more into it and were putting some useful moves together. With ten minutes to go Whitehead sent in that cross and Delap powered a superb header giving Wright no chance. We have had few occasions to go mental this season so we have to make the most of each one and we certainly did so. If you watch Match of the Day when the players come running over to us to celebrate you can see an astonishingly handsome middle-aged man standing on his chair (I must start acting my age) waving his arms around randomly.

It was not over yet and while Everton attempted to pile on the pressure to get back in front (giving us some hairy moments) we had the best chance. Delap got the ball on the left not far from the half way line and moved forward, finding himself with a shooting opportunity which he powered in. It cracked against the post with some strength. A couple of inches different and we could have had the three points. A win for us would not have flattered us either.

So at least we’d enjoyed ourselves for once. The whole atmosphere has also been helped by the talk of the Quinny-fronted Irish consortium being interested in us. It seems absolutely true that there is such a consortium. How serious they are, how likely it is to happen etc seems much more a matter of conjecture. However, the fact they are there at all gives us grounds for optimism. To some people the expression “clutching at straws” is a pejorative one – it is used as an insult. But isn’t reaching for hope better than getting oneself rooted in despair? We have spent this season grasping at thin air. Clutching at straws is wonderful in comparison.