Everton 1 - Blues 1 - Singing The Blues

However, Blues were desperately disappointed not to take all three points when David Unsworth’s 91st minute equaliser saved the day for Everton, after Stern John’s penalty had looked enough to secure a first win of the campaign for Steve Bruce’s men.

Blues continued with the flat back four that had stifled – to some extent – messrs Cole, Yorke and Duff on Saturday. In fact, the only change to the team was Darren Carter dropping to the bench to accommodate debutant Robbie Savage moving into the centre of midfield alongside Aliou Cisse, whilst Damien Johnson played wide on the right with Bryan Hughes played out of position wide left.

Blues started the game fairly confidently, again not looking particularly over-awed by the task in front of them. Martin Grainger hit Steve Simonsen’s crossbar with a sweet left foot free-kick – he’s getting closer every game – whilst John forced Simonsen into tipping a looping header from a Grainger corner over the bar.

Blues were dealt a major blow midway through the opening period however, when Olivier Tebily (our new right back, after having already played centre back and central midfield in his short time at the club) was forced to limp off the field with what appeared to be a hamstring injury. Jeff Kenna replaced him coming off the bench.

Everton began to get on top themselves in the latter stages of the first half, with 16 year old Wayne Rooney showing some nice touches, though lacking the killer instinct that sees him already rated at around £15 million. Rooney’s fellow strikers Tomasz Radzinski and Kevin Campbell also went close – Campbell hitting Nico Vaesen’s upright following a goalmouth scramble.

However, neither team were able to convert any chances before the break, and consequently Blues reached their first half time in which they were on at least a level pegging.

Blues started the second half brightly, attacking from the whistle. Just 3 minutes into the half, John took advantage of some lacklustre Everton defending, and found himself through on goal. John could only manage a weak effort straight at Simonsen – however, this was due to Alan Stubbs attempting to wrestle him to the floor at the same time. Referee Eddie Wolstenholme duly awarded Blues a penalty and rightly sent Stubbs off, as he was clearly the last man.

John dusted himself down, stepped up, and put Blues 1-0 up via Simonsen’s left hand post.

Now, it’s understandable that Blues would desperately want to hold onto their lead to collect their first win of the game, so perhaps it’s acceptable that defenders would drop deep and invite pressure. However, against ten men, surely the right approach would to have been to exert the numerical advantage. If Everton still had a full compliment of players on the field, then perhaps the actions of the Blues players could have been better understood.

However, this was ten men of a poor team playing against us, and to invite pressure was suicidal. Had Blues gone in search of a second goal, they may well have been able to kill the game off. As it was, the inevitable occurred.

Everton piled on as much pressure as Blues allowed them too – which was a lot. Radzinski again went close with a curling left footed effort. Rooney and Campbell caused problems for the Blues defence, whilst Tony Hibbert was bombing forward from right back and terrorising Grainger and Darren Carter (on for the ineffective Hughes).

Blues had one or two good counter attacks – one where John really wasted a great opportunity to play in skipper Geoff Horsfield when two on one – yet the goal was only going to come at one end of the field.

In injury time, Everton won two consecutive corners. From the second, Hibbert was able to swing in a cross that Vaesen should have plucked from the air. As it was, Vaesen left Darren Purse to head the ball out of danger.Unfortunately the header only found Unsworth on the edge of the area who hit a shot low which crept inside the right hand post despite Kenny Cunningham being stationed on the line. It was a devestating blow for Blues, as highlighted by the players at the end who sank to the turf – Stern John not rising for at least 3 or 4 minutes.

Now, many will claim ‘Well, we’d have taken a point before the game’ and other such cliches, but the fact is that this was 2 points dropped against a disappointing Everton outfit. The game was won – all Blues had to do was continue to play as they had against 11 men, rather than allowing Everton all the time, space and possession to get themselves back into the game.

The likes of Savage and Cisse both tired badly (though Cisse was immense in the first half) and the other players simply retreated as if this were a Trevor Francis team looking to hold on to a 1-0 lead.

If every time we go 1-0 up this season, we retreat to our own half and invite a steady stream of pressure, we won’t win a game all season, and will be down by Christmas.

We need to get wise to playing football at this level, and not view it as a Cup game and trying to hang on for our lives. It’s bad enough doing it in general, but to do so against 10 men was simple naivety and we only have ourselves to blame.

Our first goal, our first point and our first huge disappointment.

Player Ratings:
Vaesen – Sound in general, but at fault for goal
Tebily – Worrying injury
Grainger – Generally sound until the latter stages
Purse – Solid
Cunningham – Solid on the whole, but could have dealt better with the goal
Johnson – Quiet
Hughes – Completely out of the game – again
Cisse – Magnificent for an hour, then tired
Savage – Typical Robbie Savage, aggressive, passionate but tired
John – Adapting well to the top flight, but needs better service
Horsfield – Ditto Stern John

SUBS:
Kenna – Impressive
Carter – Found things difficult
Morrison – Not enough time to have an impact, but at least he got on.

Everton 1 - Blues 1

Last updated : 06 October 2002 By Richard Barker