After the lord mayor’s show? Sort of.

Football is not known as the beautiful game for nothing, and it’s not called the beautiful just because sometimes the quality of performance is simply breathtaking. It’s called the beautiful game because it can take you from one end of the emotional scale to the other in a matter of minutes, or, if you give it a couple of weeks, even further than you could imagine. In the space of two short weeks, we Sunderland fans witnessed one of the worst away games in our history, and one of the best. Don’t get me wrong, they were both just single games out of a total of 38 in the season, but up the road we were against our nearest and not so dearest, while at Chelsea we inflicted their heaviest defeat on their own turf since Abramovic arrived. While it was only one game and, as Brucie says, it’s already history, we should remember it for as long as possible, not least because it got the national media saying lots of nice things about us. Benty wasn’t even playing, and Wellbeck continued the improvement he’s shown since the beginning of the month to show, at last, what all the fuss is about. What I’m still waiting for is for those Sunderland fans who expected nothing from Stamford Bridge to give Brucie a big, sloppy kiss as promised should we get so much as a point.

We even had another Sunderland Lad playing for England, and, while it has to be admitted than Jordan didn’t shine, it also has to be admitted that the support he got from his midfield colleagues, Barry in particular, was pathetic. Strange that Carroll got the front page headlines for winning his first cap while his performance, again, through no fault of his own, was no better than Hendo’s. Let’s hope it’s not the last cap for either of them, because, despite his being a Mag, and a bit of an arse off the field, Carroll could be better than a lot of the pretenders to the England centre forward role. Except Benty, of course, but they’re different types of player.

Anyway, while not expecting us, Mag-like, to fly to the moon without a rocket or win the Champions League because of a good week, we should savour the moment and feel confident of our chances against Everton. After a slow start, they’ve come back into form probably because of the lack of a Davis Moyes knee-jerk reaction. He’s persevered with the players he’s got, made a few sensible changes, and this got his team back on the rails. Like last week, we could go into the game having watched MoTD on Saturday (and MoTD 2 this week) and thus knowing where the result would put us in the league. Benty ,by all accounts, should be able to play some part in the game – lucky Lad, considering the shamefully typical nonsense near the Bigg Market on Friday tea-time, when the friendly locals decided it would be a good idea to pelt his motor with bottles – proper glass ones, as well. Hell, I’m glad I’m not one of them.

Anyway, we narrowly avoided an interaction with the car in front on the way through, necessitating a change in underwear for most of the bus, then found that the rumours about Gyan and Bramble being crocked were true. If it wasn’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have no luck at all.

Gordon
Onouah Ferdy Turner McBardsley
Zenden Catts Hendo Rico
Welbeck Bent

So, we stuck with the 4-4-2 that served us so well at Chelsea, albeit with a couple of enforced changes of personnel, and went straight into the attack with Onouah’s pass winning an early corner. If we thought that was a sign of things to come, we were wrong, and Everton ripped our right hand side to shreds with some neat passing, and Leighton Baines, with an early indication that he was to be the bane of our lives, raced away to whip in a cross. When that happens, there’s usually only one outcome, and Cahill didn’t disappoint the visiting fans with a clinical header on five minutes. At least it shook us up a bit, and we won a series of free kicks in the following minutes, the pick of which was Rico’s low effort that flew past the wall and away. There looked to be signs of a breakthrough as Zenden, then Hendo, nearly found a way through to Bent. When Rico stumbled out of a foul and got into the box the ref refused to give the advantage, but that free came to nothing, and Keiran’s next piece of action was to tackle back well on our left. On 22, Bolo turned away from Pienaar’s attempted rugby tackle just in their half, and ran at the defence down the right. As they tried to cover his left peg, he went to the line and hit a hard, low cross that found Wlebeck at the front post, who duly stabbed it in. Great set-up and nice finish.

Five minutes later, with Welbeck popping up all over the place up front, McBards and Rico broke down the right and shot a yard wide, then Gordon saved smartly from Pienaar before Baines was away again to win a corner. This brought a desperate save cum block on the line, and was followed with a couple more saves from Gordon as Everton got on top of the midfield. Two minutes were added, and Welbeck almost got through before Bards crossed and Bent flashed a header a couple of feet over the top. Level at the break, and I was quite happy with that considering the amount of possession the visitors had enjoyed.

No changes for the second half, when we thought Brucie might have done something to counter their left side threat, but it was us who showed first when Rico set Welbeck away and his low cross just evaded Bent at the back post. Young Danny then had a shot saved, and Catts drove into the box only to be crowded out. The ball broke to Zenden outside the box, and his drive was deflected over for a corner as the crowd got behind the team. Everton weren’t sitting back, and were straight down our end to force a goal-line clearance from Turner, who collided with the post in doing so and required treatment. Off we went again, and Bards saw his cross headed on by Zenden (yes, Zenden) to Bent, but he was offside. Bent was away from a Hendo pass soon after, but was well shepherded in the box, and the shot never came. We alternated between putting some nice moves together and either giving the ball away in midfield, or waiting for Catts to do all the tackling there. We looked to have broken well from an Everton attack, but Hendo never really had it under control as he galloped down the right, and it came to nothing. With 25 to go, they replaced Coleman with Rodwell, and the visitors quickly won a corner. Bent cleared this one, and we built a nice passage of play which ended on the edge of the box. On 68, Zenden made way for Steed when most of us were expecting Hendo to be taken off, as he’d not made a tackle all evening.

Between Everton trying to walk the ball into our net, Welbeck nicked it off the defender’s toes and set up Bent, but a block meant all we got was a corner. Rico’s right wing effort was cleared, but Catts fed it straight back out wide, and this time Kieran’s whipped cross found the head of Welbeck, and the ball flashed past Howard for 2-1 on 70 minutes. Cracking goal which, to be honest, hadn’t looked like coming. This naturally lifted the game, the crowd roared us on to try and get the clinching third, and Rodwell hit Bards with a naughty one, earning himself a yellow card. Everton replaced Heitinga and Saha with Yakubu and Beckford as they went for the equaliser, and with seven to go, Arteta turned to hit a shot that looked to be all Gordon’s until it hit Bards, and there was their second.

Hendo was replaced by Elmo, who was quickly into the action down the right, but it was Bent who knocked the ball to Welbeck, and his effort was cleared. Steed did well to find Bent, but with Welbeck free at the back, Darren slashed a shot into the side netting from a narrow angle. Four minutes were added, and both sides could have scored twice as the game opened right up. Steed shot wide from distance, then his effort was blocked and the rebound was hit agonisingly wide by Bent. Everton still had time to break, and Beckford produced an awful miss when he lobbed the ball over the bar from a great position.

2-2, and a bit of a breathless encounter. Everton are always a hard side to beat – for us, at least –so I’m not too disappointed with the single point. Our new-look defence had a bit of a torrid time with Baines down their left, and, without Bramble, the distribution from the centre halves was not good. Bards was again the pick of the back four, but it was in midfield where we couldn’t really get a grip of the game with Arteta dictating things in the centre. Hendo had a pretty poor game, which was a shame as Catts did well to chase and win the ball, while Zenden was always looking to get the ball into the box. Rico was up and down as usual, but might have been better employed stifling a dangerous left back, as he did last week. Bent was not quite back in the groove, but Welbeck carried on where he left off last Sunday, being a real handful for the opposition. So he gets my Man of the Match.

Keep the faith

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