Apparently we’ve got a great record against Everton at home, record number of wins or something I heard on the radio beforehand. Surprising, given our recent history against them. It offered little comfort to me as I was fairly pessimistic before hand about the chances of anything today, but I was sure it wouldn’t be another trouncing like we got at Goodison earlier in the season. Everton might not be the best team to watch but they play effective football and play the system they have well. Their strength is their midfield and that’s where they have their numbers. They’re challenging for fourth place as they keep clean sheets and do well home and away.
Some hope, however was to be found in the fact that this would be their third game in 7 days and just 3 days since getting beat against Fiorentina. Plus they’d had injuries to a few of their players and we’re missing Carsley, Vaughan and Osman among others. That said they put a good team out.
Sunderland had another mix and match rabble which turned out to be another 4-5-1 effort with Murphy and Stokes wide and Leadbitter returning to the side. Liam Miller, sadly, is still in the doghouse – that’s if he made it on time.
In the early stages it was hard to see who was top 5 and who was bottom 5. It was scrappy, neither side started well and nothing of any note was created. It was congested in midfield and nobody was able to stamp their authority on the game. There was however some meaty tackles going in with Stokes and Whitehead both running a fine line before Whitehead did eventually get booked. There was more in the second half and Bardsley appeared to go in pretty high on Pienaar and got booked too while Cahill went in the book for a hack on Whitehead.
Playing one up front only really works if you get midfielders up supporting the front man but whenever the ball made its way up to Jones the times he did win it there was very little support so the move invariably broke down. Richardson, seemingly the obvious choice for that role seemed reluctant to get forward and the wide men couldn’t get in to help out either. Everton weren’t much better, despite playing Yakubu and Johnson it was Johnson who played on his own up front and Yakubu was fairly ineffective out wide. Both back fours had a fairly easy ride. It took until just before half time for the first piece of real goalmouth action. Yobos header from a corner was cleared off the line instinctively by Stokes via the post and the rebound was headed over by Johnson.
Second half started much more brightly and it appeared both teams had decided they’d go for it a bit. Chopra came on for Stokes and got forward to support Jones more. After a bit more huff and puff it was Everton that got the vital opening goal 10 minutes in. A diagonal cross from Arteta was deflected in off Johnson. I’m not sure how much he got on it but he claimed it and it Everton were one up. It was going to be doubly difficult now.
Sunderland started to go for it a bit more, Chopra went properly up front, Prica came on, as did Reid but it was pretty sporadic stuff and there wasn’t much created. Everton maintained their shape and stayed well in control. They played the perfect away game really, play it tight, see it to half time, get their goal and see the game out.
Reids introduction added a bit of quality and inventiveness and a nice through ball to Chopra gave him a shooting chance late on but it was blocked by Jagielka. And the obligatory injury time goal nearly came about too via an Andy Reid free-kick but despite it heading for the goal Tim Howard pulled off a great save to tip it over. Even then the resulting corner had a header cleared off the line but it was too little too late. Everton had as many chances as we did but they took one that mattered and that was all that separated the sides.
So, with midweek games coming up for some teams around us and Chelsea up next the league table looks a little more precarious now and our position may get worse before it gets better but we have more winnable games ahead of us than today was.
Report by marcopaul
