How the Fuck Did We Not Win This?
So
– we haven’t won here since 1997 apparently.
That’s not very good is it.... especially as Everton have had periods of
not being terribly good since then though they evidently coincided with us
being worse. That’s not the case now
though with Saints being one of the form teams in the entire country and
Everton being ... a team managed by Roberto Martinez. It took him a while but he’s done what I
predicted – gradually dismantled the resolute Moyes-era Everton and now play
nice football but lose regularly because they can’t defend for shit. With every passing week he’s turning into
Brendan Rodgers – great reputation from not many results and post-match
interviews which have become a joke.
He’s always crapping on about their fantastic world-class players which
kind of makes you as manager look rather silly when you’re lower in the league
than West Brom. Everton are though, a
‘proper’ football club with sound foundations and their fans are decent and
they seem to have seen through Roberto’s bullshit and aren’t happy – even with
an FA Cup Semi-Final against Man United coming up next week.
News
from the Saints camp is that Steve Davis is fit but Charlie Austin is not. We have 5 games left and with Spurs and Man
City being in the other four, we need to win today to give us a shout at
finishing 6th and getting into the Europa League again. Ronald and the players have been talking a
good game anyway so we shall see.
Hold
the back page, we’ve got an unchanged team which means that Steve Davis hasn’t come
straight back in and the Cédric is stil behind Martina in the pecking
order. Everton on the other hand are
decimated by suspensions and injuries and their manager having one eye on a
Merseyside Derby in midweek and an FA Cup Semi Final next Saturday. Lukaku and Barkley are on the bench and ‘world
class’ Gareth Barry is nowhere to be seen.
They have some good players like Stones, Coleman & Mirallas but we
really should be beating these today. I’d
be surprised if any of those 5 decent players (not Barry) I’ve just mentioned
will fancy being around next year, especially if Martinez is still the manager.
It
doesn’t take long for a pattern to be established and we are clearly the more
confident side as you’d expect. Martina
hits over a shite of a cross which I nowhere near anyone but it’s dropping
right under the bar so Robles has to shovel it over the bar. The next opportunity is Big Vic trying an
optimistic daisy cutter which is easily saved.
Everton are managing the odd break with Mirallas seeing a shot blocked
by Fonte and then the first big chance as Martina’s cross is headed down by
Long at the back stick and Tadic volleys first time over the bar. We’ve been slaughtering Tadic for taking too
much time but ironically, he could have taken a touch here.
It’s
all Saints and the Everton fans are getting annoyed already and we’ve only
played about 20 minutes. They are there
for the taking if we can get in front and Long latches onto a ball over the top
and tried to Vardy it and hit it first time as it drops but he fucks it right
up and smashes it into the crowd. When
Everton get back up our end, the game is stopped as José is wandering around
not knowing what day it is. O have no
idea why the Everton fans think he’s putting this on and eventually he has to
go off to be replaced by Maya Yoshida which means we’re probably going to have
to score two to win now. If I was
Martinez I’d put Lukaku on straight away as he’s exactly the kind of striker
that Maya can’t deal with.
Everton
are trying to play out from the back but they neither have the movement or
ability to do this. Funes Mori loses it
to Big Vic after an awful touch and we work it to Long who is away until Gibson
cynically takes him out with a slide tackle that was so late it evoked memories
of Paul Wotton. For me there’s a case
for a red card here. There are covering
defenders and if he’s just tripped him or pulled him back then yellow and fair enough
but he’s absolutely deliberately binned him and Shane’s in a heap on the ground. It’s deliberate and dangerous.
Unfortunately
we can’t take full advantage as Bertrand’s free kick is near the top corner but
Robles reads it and saves well. Ryan
then makes a balls of the short corner and instead of crossing it, stabs
Bertrand
short corner, rubbish, stabs it into our half and Deulofeu is away until Big
Vic executes a perfect slide tackle which would have seen him sent off had he
missed it.
We
win another corner as Tadic gets in a good cross from the right and Stones
beats Pellè to it to knock it behind. Bertrand’s
corner is delivered first time this time and Long gets up and his flicked
header hits the inside of the far post and is cleared. Bollocks.
More corners won, more corners delivered and more scrambled clearances
from Everton until one lands with Virgil on the edge of the box and he takes a
touch before putting it over the bar.
Half time and we’re going to regret not scoring aren’t we? The atmosphere is so flat and the Everton
team so poor that us going in front would be match-winning.
The
second half starts with more of the same with Long having a shot blocked and
then, after some good possession football around the edge of the box, Tadic
cuts in and onto his left foot before shooting and seeing it flick off of
Gibson’s head and smack against the bar and out. Balls.
Everton are really only getting in our half when we fuck something up
when we’re attacking and one such break ends with Pellè clumsily fouling Osman
about 25 yards out. We’re waiting for
Mirallas’ free kick to fly straight into the top corner but in the end he
lamely chips it over the wall and straight to Fraser. It’s crap to be honest.
Graziano
is not having a great game but he does get on the end of a low Martina cross
and puts it wide but Ronald rolls the dice and removes our main, in form
striker and replaces him with Steven Davis.
That’s a strange one… I could have understood a like for like swap with
J-Rod…. We’ve got control in midfield anyway.
Everton are forced into a sub straight after as Coleman tries to keep
pace with Irish team mate Long and does a hamstring to be replaced by a kid
called Connolly who looks about 13. The
new lad adds a bit of energy to Everton and gets down the right to win a
corner.
Over
it comes from Mirallas and Funes Mori gets a free header which is blocked back
out to him and he smashes the rebound through a ruck of bodies and into the net
via a deflection. Oh fuck off. This is fucking ridiculous. Two effort from the same player suggests that
no one was marking him… guess who was supposed to be… yep. Maya Yoshida.
As
if by magic we’re now straight back on the attack again and Mané teaches
Connolly about the other side of being a right back and totally skins him
before hanging up a cross for Graziano who….. watches on from the bench. Tadic is having a field day on the right
against Oviedo and beats him every single time and makes room for a cross
before doing something shite with it.
J-Rod
come son for Big Vic who copped a knee in the back in the first half and Jay
immediately takes on Oviedo, burns past him and then runs out of pitch. Just when you think it’s not going to come,
it does as again we keep possession around the Everton box and eventually Tadic
bursts infield and the ball squirts though via a deflection to Mané who puts it
away to make it 1-1 with 12 minutes to go.
Letting in the goal sparks a pitch invasion by one bloke who has a chat
with Leon Osman before getting all arsey in the direction of the Everton
manager. I bet he looked behind him at
one point to see all his mates and none had followed. Enjoy your banning order you twat.
Can
we do it? The last ten minutes is all Saints. Long gets played through on the right but can’t
get a shot away so he tries to lay it back to Jay who has it taken off his toe
before he can shoot. J-Rod then gets a
chance and stings the palms of Robles with a blast from a narrow angle and then
Mané skins Osman on the right but again, Everton manage to get away with it.
And
shit!!! Whilst a point at Goodison is never to be sniffed at – today it’s a
shite result both because we needed a win and because Everton were desperately
bad. We were the better team by a mile
and really should have won comfortably but we blew it with an inability to find
a final ball or get the shot on target. Dusan
Tadic was at his most frustrating today - I just know that he’ll be picked out
as Man of the Match by lots of people because of the way he continually beat
Oviedo but what’s the point if every ball you put into the box picks out an
Everton defender? to be fair though, a majority of our chances were created by him but it still does my head in. Usually I ‘get’ the reason why people were
subbed at the time but when Graziano got subbed, I gave that decision the
benefit of the doubt to start with but the desired effect just didn’t
happen so we wasted about 20 minutes until Big Vic had to go off and we threw J-Rod
on. Then we looked more of a threat but couldn’t fashion a decent chance in the last
ten despite being camped in their half for most of it. I guess that having to take José off cut down
on the flexibility that Ronald had with the subs in the second half. The good
news is that Clasie was forced to play 90 minutes.
Afterwards,
Ronald made no bones about the fact that our lack of goals away from home is
damaging our Europa chances and he’s right of course. The flip side is that we are very solid away
from home in that we don’t let many. What
can we do…. Both Tadic and Mané create opportunities but too often the final
ball lets them down (as mention earlier and about 80 times this season) and
they don’t score enough. Another problem
is that our midfielders don’t score enough – I think of the regulars, it’s Vic
1, Jordy 0, Davo 2 this season. Maybe we
need to get JWP in the side ahead of Clasie in away games. We will lose a bit defensively but gain on
the free kick delivery etc. In the context
of our team, Steve Davis has to contribute more goals as well. I know he was a sub today but playing where
he does, he has to contribute more than 0 to 2 goals per season.
With
United and Liverpool winning and West Ham drawing at Leicester – we haven’t
done our chances of finishing above any of these teams much good today. There’s a few midweek games this week so we
may have a clearer picture after those because of teams catching up their games
in hand. So – we want a Watford win at
West Ham, an Everton win at Liverpool and a Palace win at United. No chance.
Next
up we have a trip to the walking disaster that is Aston Villa who got officially
relegated on Saturday, having been relegated in spirit since about
October. Ronald is bemoaning our lack of
away goals but if we can’t get a few against Villa then we really are
struggling. We’ve already dropped two
points in the home game against them and I can’t imagine many teams have failed
to beat them at least once this season.
Maybe J-Rod to start? Bring it
on.
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