I walked out of Goodison Park yesterday with what seemed like an angry dark cloud hanging over my head – and it wasn’t just the fog that had suddently appeared earlier in the evening. It felt like we had lost a match rather than just drawn with one of Sky’s Big 4. Before kick-off I probably would have taken a point apiece reasonably happily, but after the events of the 90+ minutes, I thought we had the full 3 points sewn up before we carelessly handed 2 of them away at the death.
A quiet but full Goodison welcomed Arsenal to play an Everton with Arteta and Fellaini reinstated after injury and suspension respectively, essentially Everton’s full strength team in the new 4-6-0 era. A bright start by Everton saw most of the action in the Arsenal half, with a good pace to the game but the final pass or pinpoint cross sadly lacking. Arsenal looked dangerous as ever on the break but our defence was a match for anything that they threw at us, which wasn’t a great deal as they too lacked that final ball which could slice through our solid back 4.
Honours even at half time with few clearcut chances and although both teams had good spells of posession, neither really looked like scoring. The deadlock was broken by the man it was always destined to be, as Tim Cahill scored his 100th career goal with a superb header and returned to the trademark corner flag celebration in the Park End. A perfectly flighted cross from near the left hand corner flag from Leighton Baines meant that Cahill’s perfectly timed leap resulted with an excellent connection and the ball flew in across the body of Almunia, giving the Arsenal keeper no chance of stopping the goal. Goodison awoke with a roar and remained noisily awake until Cahill unhappily went off injured with what looked scarily like another foot injury. Please not that metatarsal again Tim!!?
Everton managed to contain all of Arsenal’s attempts to break them down as the urgency from the men in red and white increased. What we were not so good at was retaining posession and this flaw is what resulted in van Persie being able to latch onto a long ball and skillfully smash home the equaliser in injury time. An utterly avoidable equaliser.
Having had a few hours and a kip to get the match into perspective, I am still disappointed with the way that we handed Arsenal several invitations in the last few minutes of the match to come at us. Whilst I admire the way in which some of our players were clearly striving for a second goal, through carelessness we have ended up now being 10 points behind 4th place Aston Villa in the table, although of course Arsenal ahead of us haven’t extended their gap. It was still a decent performance by our depleted squad and one that we can be proud of, in addition to the fact we have maintained our unbeaten run. We can go to Old Trafford on Saturday with confidence that we have a chance to get something from the game – assuming Timmy Cahill’s injury is just a tap to the foot and not the serious and possibly career ending break that went through all of our minds last night?
The way I feel about this draw tells me that my expectations have been raised by our recent performances and we don’t have to be scared about facing any team in our league. All credit goes to the playing and coaching staff at Everton for going above and beyond what is expected both by the media and by their harshest critics – us, the fans. They have pulled together when it counts, which is one of the many reasons why I love my club.
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Diaby vows to keep fighting, i’m so relieved.
Would someone please teach Diaby to play simple pass!! For gods sake man, if he wins the ball, which is almost never, he runs with it until he has 2-3 men on him and then loses it, and the fucked up thing is, he does not only do it once or twice, but every time!!! For every pass Diaby plays Denilson plays 10, and that is considering that both players have the ball equal amount of time. It’s really embarrasing. Diaby did play 1 good pass to van Persie for the equaliser, but still kick him in the ass every time he runs with the ball more than 2 seconds!
And Song!! Fair enough he’s a defencive player, does that now mean that he can’t keep the ball for more than 3 seconds? Or that he can’t play a pass to a teammate to save his life?! Who teaches passing at Arsenal, a blind man? For crist’ sake, this is one of the best clubs in the world, and they pass like blind retards!!!
Yes 2points dropped for Everton & for Arsenal. i have been impressed with the consistant level of toffee’s recent performances but one good goal each, means both teams got what they deserved. Ars often outplay/outpass teams&hav more chances
(Way it goes)
Hi i am an Arsenal fan i think you can be very proud of your team and you Manager i still think you may finish above the other lot Liverhoof
who do everton fans feel they are chasing 4 5 spot?villa or arsenal?
Butler – well we are chasing both of course
Although I feel that Villa will be found out pretty soon and start dropping points – in my opinion they aren’t actually THAT good and are in a bit of a false position at the moment. They have 10 points on us though so it will be tight between all 3 teams I think.
I’d rather we just try and win every match and the points will take care of themselves. The teams around us are bound to make a few errors between now and the end of the season so its up to us not to do the same.