Firstly, here’s hoping you all had a merry Christmas, and received more sensible gifts than my eldest bestowed on my youngest – a bottle of Jim Beam and a 105 decibel megaphone, the adult equivalent of giving a five-year-old a drumkit a sack full of Haribo.

Whatever you got, it was a lot more than Howard “look at me” Webb deserved. For details, read on.....

No surprises with the starting eleven

West
O’Shea Brown Bramble Bards
Larss Vaughan Catts Rico
Sess
Bendtner

Kicking south towards a decent visiting contingent (how often do I get to say that?), Catts was quickly in to replicate his tenacity of Wednesday night, winning the ball and helping to set Bend away – but Everton got in the way. Bramble too continued his cool efficiency by getting in a great tackle to foil the first visiting attack. More grit and determination from O’Shea, Vaughan, and Catts set Rico free, but he couldn’t quite get in.

As the game settled into a sort of frantic rhythm, Westy took two goes to collect a flicked-on long throw, and then brought off a decent save as they broke down their right – and this was with only six minutes gone. Larsson, playing inside a bit more than is usual, helped to get a nice 1-2 between Bendtner and Vaughan set away, but an unlucky bounced ended that move. Bendtner was showing superb close control, all little drag-backs and step-overs, while Sess was his usual untouchable self. The two combined to construct an opportunity for NIcklas, but his first effort was blocked and the second curled wide.

There was always danger from Baines when he found space breaking forward, and there were only 20 on the clock when Bramble succumbed to injury, which was a shame as he was doing well. Colback came on, with Bards moving to the right, O’Shea into the middle, and Rico to left back. A right shuffle to contend with, but we seemed to do OK.

After another Brown clearance, we broke forward with Sess through the middle, and his ball rolled to Colback allowed the Ginja Ninja to place his shot – meaning that the attempted block simply steered the ball into a different part of the net. Gerrin, and a nice first goal for the Lad.

We pressed more, they had a few attacks as well in a pretty frenzied first half, and Larsson hit a free into the wall that Distain stopped with his chin – falling poleaxed to the ground, and us following the stupid new FIFA directive which states that if an opponent looks a teeny bit upset, you have to hoof the ball out of play. What’s wrong with putting it into the net then seeing how the lad is? The bugger was spark out anyway and couldn’t have cared where we’d put the ball.

Only a minute added, despite a substitution and a man down, but there you go.

Bards, who’d been heavily strapped up in the first half, was replaced by Gardner after the break, and helped to set Sess away. Tim Howard was out pretty quick to get down to the little feller’s feet, and the chance was gone.

Then came the game’s big talking point. An Everton player (let’s call him Cheaty Diver) tried to dance though our defence, caught his studs in the turf, or on a passing piece of litter, and went down in the box. Webb knelt down, counted to ten or so, and gave a penalty which Baines put away with his usual aplomb. If it wasn’t a foul when it happened, Howard, it wasn’t a foul ten seconds later, you prat. That’s me convinced that we need camera intervention – not because the game’s become too fast, but because people like Mr H. Webb need to be shown up for being idiots.

In the rest of the rest of the game, we tried to get forward, but Bendtner had seemed to have lost the will to compete, being the polar opposite of his first-half self. Sess continued to run at and beat his man, which was frustrating to say the least as we were winning a lot of ball in the centre of midfield with some solid tackling. Gardner was surprisingly effective during most of his time at right back, and often got us away down that side. Colback almost snuck a whipped cross in front of Howard, who then decided to take the proverbial by taking ages over each goal kick – and was punished by Howard Webb pointing at his watch and adding only three minutes at the end. A koke, Howard.

In an attempt to change things, MON brought on McLean for Vaughan for the last ten, and the Derryman did what he did best – ran at people, got a shot or two away, and pinged in a couple of crosses, but Everton’s defence were up to their task, despite almost firing in a spectacular OG late on. The whistle went, the litter stopped swirling about, and we applauded that Lads off for their hard work, and hoyed insults at the officials.

So no breaking of the Everton hoodoo – Gazza was in the last Toffee team to lose to us – and a point might not look to bad a return when you watch MOTD later tonight, but, make no mistake, we’d have won this game had it not been for the inept and glamour-seeking Howard Webb.

Man of the Match? Good fill-in by Gardner, great first half by Bendtner, quite day from Seb, and tidy as ever from Vaughan. Good performance from Colback, and versatility from Rico, but it’ll have to go to Catts again – I’m impressed with the new, controlled aggression, sensible version.

Keep the faith

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