Blog a Day 40 of 365 – What a great result
A great performance and a great result for Everton against Man Utd on Saturday. I was sceptical going into the game as we don’t usually do too well against Man Utd, but for once not only did we beat them, but we did it by outplaying them. When most teams outside the top 4 beat Utd they do it on the back of a solid defence, stopping Man Utd playing proper football, and getting a single goal and defending it with their lives. Everton didn’t do that, taking the game to them and trying to outplay them, just like we’ve done recently against Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea. It was a tremendous team performance, even more remarkable because we were missing two of our best performers this season in Fellaini and Tim Cahill. Without Fellaini in the team I was worried we’d lack a physical presence in midfield, but it seems having 5 talented midfielders playing (Osman, Arteta, Donovan, Pienaar and Bilyaletdinov) meant that we were able to keep possession better, denying Man Utd their usual mountains of possession which they can use to break teams down. Man Utd can possibly point to their midweek exertions in Milan, coupled with the fact they were missing a few keys players of their own (Giggs, Ferdinand, Vidic), but it would be harsh on Everton to suggest they were the reasons we won the game. Even Alex Ferguson himself admitted they were outplayed in the second half of the game. If we can continue to play like this for the rest of the season, we definitely have an outside chance of grabbing a European place. We’re currently 7 points behind Liverpool in 5th place, with a game in hand over them, so it’s unlikely, but I know David Moyes will push the team to go as far as they can.
Great to see Jack Rodwell come on and do so well. I mentioned in my blog a few days ago about my hopes for him, and it was good to see him come on and play well, scoring the goal that sealed the game for us. It was such a well taken goal, showing great composure to place the ball in the corner rather than simply lashing at it. If I were in that position I definitely would have just tried to put my foot through the ball, hitting it as hard as I could, but he showed great maturity to slot it away nicely. Hopefully as he returns to full fitness he’ll get more game time and we can see more goals like that from the youngster before the end of the season.
