A Boxing Day line up for Everton yesterday lacked a recognised striker yet again and as the injury list lengthens by the day, a young man named Dan Gosling was to get his debut at the age of 18 thanks to John Terry’s tackle on Leon Osman last Monday. Leighton Baines came in for Yobo and an otherwise unchanged starting eleven made the trip to the Riverside whilst most of the country were still digesting their sprouts and quality street chocolates.

Everton started brightly and made most of the running in the first half, having the most joy up the left hand side with Pienaar and Baines interlinking well.  The referee seemed to blow his whistle for pretty much everything.  At least he was quite consistent, but it made for a very stop/start match and meant neither team could really find their flow.  Pienaar had a goal disallowed for a Lescott or Fellaini push on the keeper and it seemed that every single set piece ended in the ref’s whistle the entire first half.  Despite this, Everton were still very dominant and were creating plenty of chances, just lacking that confident finishing that a Saha or Yakubu would have brought.  Gosling came close a couple of times, just understandably lacking composure slightly in front of goal, which certainly couldn’t have been said about his play on the rest of the pitch.  Pienaar should have scored for real with a shot that hit the post from a clever headed set-up by Cahill. Even Phil Neville had a decent effort at goal, which shows that we really were enjoying most of the play.  Howard only really had one save to make in the opening period and that was a very good one, from an O’Neill shot through a cluster of players which must have meant the keeper had little warning.  Everton must have been wondering how the game was still without a goal at half time.

The second half began in very much the same manner, with Everton on top and it didn’t take long before Cahill had put the Blues in front.  An Arteta corner glanced the Australian’s head before Lescott’s boot put it back at Cahill’s feet 2 yards from the goal line and he poked it into the net past the keeper’s arms.  Not the most attractive goal ever – but they all count and it was thoroughly deserved.  Everton continued to dominate the second half although failed to take their chances again and as time went on, Boro unsurprisingly started to pile on the pressure as they looked for an equaliser.  Everton’s back 4 stood firm however and Howard wasn’t ever really called into action.  Although Boro had the best of the final minutes which made Evertonians a little nervy, the game ended with that single goal from Cahill seperating the teams and those 3 points moved Everton up to 6th place in the league for the first time this season.

Considering that Everton have won just a single game at home all season, that league position really shows how good our away form has been.  However we can’t rely on those away games alone if we want to be challenging those teams above us in the second half of the season and less than 48 hours after the Boro game, we entertain Sunderland at home for what we hope will be a convincing victory.  One of last season’s highlights for me was the 7-1 victory over this team at Goodison but we see a very different Sunderland this time around and us probably starting the match with no strikers again makes such a repeat unlikely. It would be a good late Christmas present for Evertonians though so you never know…

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