Everton-Birmingham City: Goodison Park, 3rd Nov. 2007

Everton came into this game in a bit of form. After beating Larissa in the UEFA Cup, they traveled to Derby County for a league game.

In a dominating performance Everton ran out 2-0 winners, with goals from Arteta and Yakubu.

Then Everton moved on to Luton for a tricky League Cup 4th-round tie. In a typical cup game, the League One outfit gave a much changed Everton team a real scare (no Halloween pun intended).

It wasn’t until extra time that Everton saw them off with a Tim Cahill goal. Yet again the Australian was in the right spot at the right time.

Everton’s reward for over coming Luton is a trip to Upton Park to play West Ham Utd in the quarterfinals.

Birmingham City on the other hand aren’t having a great season. Having only secured 11 points in the league, they find them selves rooted in the bottom half of the table.

Though they would take confidence after battling back in their last match against Wigan Athletic to win 3-2, in a game where they were behind twice.

Off the field problems have affected the team. And even after talks with the new owner, doubt still hangs over the future of manager Steve Bruce.

Everton manager, David Moyes, had the luxury of selecting a team from an almost injury free squad.

The only first team player still not available was striker Andy Johnson. It has been suggested that the former Birmingham forward is nearing fitness and may be available in the very near future.

The Match

After changing much of the team for the last game, David Moyes went back to selecting a stronger looking squad to face Birmingham.

In goal returned the American Tim Howard. At right back, making his first appearance since suspension, was the team captain Phil Neville.

The two centre half’s were Joseph Yobo and Alan Stubbs, and with Baines struggling with an ankle injury, Joleon Lescott would be the left back.

Everton would yet again play a 4-5-1 formation. On the right was Mikel Arteta, Steven Pienaar on the left, and the central three would be Lee Carsley, Leon Osman and Tim Cahill.

Yakubu would be the lone striker.

On the bench they had Stefan Wessels, Phil Jagielka, Thomas Gravesen, James McFadden and James Vaughan.

It was great to see Vaughan back in the squad. The young striker is a firm favourite with the fans and has been exceptionally unlucky with injuries.

Hopefully he can keep himself fit and get back to doing what he does best, terrorizing defences.

Birmingham City brought in many new players during the summer. That may be part of the reason they are having a poor season so far.

They lined up with Maik Taylor in goal. A defence of Liam Ridgewell (captain), Stephen Kelly, Rafael Schmitz and Johan Djourou. In midfield they had Daniel De Ridder, Fabrice Muamba, Mehdi Nafti and Sebastian Larsson. And up front a strike partnership of Olivier Kapo and Cameron Jerome.

On the subs bench were Richard Kingson, Garry McSheffrey, Neil Danns, Garry O’Connor and Mikael Forssell.

The much maligned Mike Riley got the game under way.

Riley likes to be the centre of attention, often making decisions that leave fans and players in confusion. It would be interesting to see how he would referee a normal Saturday afternoon match that wasn’t live on TV.

Without the media attention, would he still seek the limelight?

Everton started brightly and got straight into the attack. Yakubu got in an early shot from 6 yards out, but could only drag it wide.

He was able to make amends soon after. After good work by Arteta, Pienaar found the Nigerian unmarked in the centre of the area for a simple tap in.

1-0 Everton.

It was Yakubu’s first goal at Goodison for Everton and the joy he felt was there for all to see.

After 20 minutes Stubbs had to leave the game. At first it wasn’t obvious why. We later learned he had a hamstring problem.

Jagielka replaced him in the centre of defence.

With the half reaching the midway point Everton began to push on. Shots by Yakubu and Carsley were saved by Taylor. While Cahill put a chance wide of the goal.

Everton weren’t having it all their own way. Birmingham had carved out a couple of good chances of their own. Howard made some comfortable saves, while Jerome fired one wide from distance.

Though the Birmingham efforts weren’t causing problems, there were signs they could get them selves back into the game.

Half time came and it was interesting that there had only been one booking. Kelly had seen yellow after a tackle on Pienaar.

In fact Riley had done well to let the game flow. It’s great when you hardly notice the referee. The game had been played at a high tempo with hardly any interference from the official.

At the start of the second half it was Everton straight into the attack. A powerful shot by Yakubu went wide, while a header from Cahill was saved by Taylor.

Everton were creating plenty of chances, but you had to wonder if the missed opportunities to extend their lead would come back to haunt them.

Birmingham made an attacking change, taking off Larsson and replacing him with O’Connor. And he was soon into the action with a shot straight at Howard.

The tide of the match was changing as Birmingham had their best spell, pushing Everton further and further back. You could almost sense them scoring as they continued forward.

In a rare Everton attack Carsley looped a shot just over the cross bar. Bruce almost instantly took off Nafti for McSheffrey in an attempt to keep Everton in their own half of the pitch.

Soon Birmingham won a corner. Just before it was taken they made their last substitution, Forssell on for De Ridder.

McSheffrey crossed in a good corner that found Kapo unmarked in the area. He powered his header into the back of the Everton goal.

1-1.

You had to say Birmingham deserved the equaliser. They hadn’t allowed Everton to dominate them and had fought well to get back into the game.

Everton brought off Osman for Vaughn as they attempted to commit more players forward. He got stuck in and saw his first shot blocked in the area.

Then came what Birmingham City manager, Steve Bruce, described as the game changing moment.

After an Everton attack one of the Birmingham defenders fell to the floor injured, but Forssell saw the opportunity for a quick counter attack, and kept the ball in play, preventing his teammate receiving treatment.

Everton soon regained position and, as a common sporting gesture, put the ball out of play to stop the game, and allow the Birmingham trainer on to the pitch.

It was expected Birmingham would play the ball back to Everton to reciprocate the sportsmanship.

Instead they kicked the ball out for a throw in, deep into the Everton half. Then attempted to box Everton into their own area.

This angered the fans and the atmosphere rocked as the crowd roared their displeasure. And to raise the crowd even more, Moyes sent on Gravesen for Pienaar.

The Dane is something of a cult figure at Goodison and his presence on the field always brings a cheer.

The Everton team responded well to the crowd and pushed forward. But time seemed against them as the game approached the 90 minute mark.

Another loud cheer rose as the fourth official showed that 4 minutes of injury time was to be played.

Maybe there would be enough time.

Everton won a corner and it was Gravesen who crossed in the ball. Birmingham managed to half clear it out of the area, but only as far as Carsley who drilled it first time into the top right hand corner of the goal.

2-1 Everton.

The roof practically blew of the stadium. With only a few minutes left in the match, surely Everton had done enough to win it?

Birmingham desperately push forward trying for a last minute goal. A high cross was headed clear by Carsley.

He would be the first to admit he was just trying to get the ball as far away from the Everton goal as possible. But his header became the perfect pass as it found Vaughn just inside the Birmingham half.

He raced forward with it, shrugged of a desperate challenge from the last Birmingham defender and fired in a low shot that beat Taylor.

3-1 Everton.

That was it, the game was over. Just enough time to restart from the centre spot before Riley blew for full time.

Everton had left it late, but the fans left the ground happy.

Conclusions

Everton had left it late, far to late. They had had enough chances to kill the game off in the first half, and could have easily been 2 or 3 up at half time.

As in the Larissa game, they had allowed the opposition back into the match, and had they been playing a better team they would have been punished.

But lets not be too critical, this was Everton’s 4^th consecutive win in all competitions. A feat they have not done since 1991! It can only breed confidence in the team and hopefully they’ll start to learn how to close out games.

Everton now face two difficult games. Both away against Nurnberg, in the UEFA Cup, and Chelsea in the league.

It could be a difficult two weeks to be an Evertonian.

Hopefully the next game I’ll be writing about is our league game against Sunderland.