Shit or bust seemed to be the order of the day, as Moyesy started with three front men, and had another two in reserve. Could we do it again. Like last season, Arsenal visited Goodison, on the back of a very impressive unbeaten run, and we all know what happened then, don't we. With Grav out, Li Tie brought in, The Rad starting ahead of Faddy, so apart from these changes, it was very much the side that took Norwich apart the weekend previous. In fairness to Arsenal, they started the more dangerous side, with the movement of Henry, Kanu and Pires in particular a pleasure to watch. Nige was threatened early doors with a long range effort, which he caught comfortably, and by this time Everton were starting to make their mark on the game. What we lacked in the skill department with the Gooners, we sure made up in with commitment to the cause, a will to win this one, and just pure passion and pride in having that blue shirt on. It should have been Everton that took the lead , as on the seventeen minute mark, an in swinging corner, created all manner of confusion in the Arsenal box, and what seemed to be a deflection off Ashley Cole, under pressure from Killa, was scrambled clear off the line. Ferguson was immense up front, and Campbell and Cygan were having a terrible time trying to contain the Big Man. Every move seemed to include Ferguson at some point, his holding up off the ball, is Graeme Sharp like and his lay off's to Kilbane set up many a good move down the left. Kilbane growing in confidence with every second he has a Everton shirt on, went on a a few mazy runs, tying the Gooners defence up in knots on a few occasions. We lacked a bit in midfield, and being one of Gravesen biggest critics over the years, even I could see we were sadly missing him. Maybe the pace of the Premiership, has caught up with Li Tie, as unfortunately for him, he was sadly lacking in every department required to hack it at the top level. Arsenal still looked dangerous on the odd break they could muster up, and in the 29th minute, Kanu made a run in between Stubbsy and Unsey, to pick up an inch perfect pass from Ljunberg. After beating the offside trap, he walked the ball around Nige to steer his shot into an empty Park End net, to give Arsenal a lead against the run of play. This setback only seemed to spur Everton on more, as right back at Arsenal they came. Still as I am writing this, I can't believe the chance The Duke spurned in the 38th minute. Kilbane as ever floated in a perfect ball to Rooney who must have been all of two yards off the goal line, totally unmarked, and he misdirected his header, out for a goal kick, when it looked far easier to score. Goodison was stunned, it should have sent us in level, deservedly so aswell at half time, but as the whistle blew, for the interval, every Blue stood and applauded the boy's off, for a first half performance that had the title contenders rocking.

Half Time : Everton 0, Arsenal 1

The second half started with the change that Stevie Wonder could have seen coming.Li Tie was hauled off in favour of Linderoth, and instantly you could see the difference in the balance of the side. The work rate carried on at the same level, as in the first half, and the crowd appreciated this by turning the volume up to fever pitch. Everton were awarded a free kick, virtually on the spot where Rooney scored that memorable winner last season. The shot was charged down by Ljunberg, who was eventually booked for encroachment, and that gave Everton a chance from bang on the eighteen yard box. Rooney had another go, and hit a pile driver which Lehmann knew very little about, but the ball rebounded off the keeper to safety. This sent the volume up another notch, and you felt if we could get one, another would follow. Arsenal were rattled, it was like the Alamo, as wave after wave of attacks rained down on the Arsenal defence. Every time they got out of their half, Stubbs and Unsey swept most things up, to carry on their impressive form of late. Unsey was thankful to his defensive partner though, when after slipping he let Henry in, to have a free run at goal. Stubbsy tracked back and got a block in to deny the French man a certain goal. This apart the game was mainly played in the Gooners third of the pitch, and with the clock ticking by, Moyesy thought he would put another forward on. Jeffers entered the fray against the club, who are paying his wages, and he started as if he had a point to prove to Mr.Wenger. Within a few minutes of being on, he turned Cole inside out, and let go a powerful drive, which the Arsenal keeper could only parry out into the path of The Rad, who from an acute angle, steered the rebound into the net, to afford Everton a well deserved equaliser. Everton sensed blood, but Arsenal were happy to consolidate, and threw on Edu and Gilberto for two front men, to try and shackle Everton's attempt to get maximum points. With minutes remaining Moyesy brought The Rad off, to a standing ovation and introduced Campbell, but as the clock ticked down to the finish, a point it was going to be. Everton this evening were nothing short of fantastic. They matched Arsenal in every department and with a run of games coming up, against sides above us in the table, that same passion and commitment to the cause, will be needed. Keep up the good work lads, as we certainly got our money's worth last night.

Full Time : Everton 1, Arsenal 1

Lavington Spa Reports from Goodison Park

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Blue Kipper Star Man

One Of These Two, But Dunc Nicks It.

Happy Toffees

Instant Impact

The Big Yin Gets It On
By
Mickey Blue Eyes

Tense, nervous headache?

Susceptible to flu?

It goes with the territory of being an Evertonian, and a match in the offing versus Arsenal. Then again, in recent years we’ve usually given them a much better test than we used to. Why, only last season in this fixture………………but you know the rest.

Actually, playing Arsenal was a much-needed boost after the tedious vapours of Birmingham and Leicester. Even expecting a malleting is part of the build-up. Which makes it all the more pleasant when it doesn’t happen. The malleting, that is.

Pre-match conviviality once again featured AusPom, Amelia and part of the Blue Kipper cast. Jogger and Lard were in the US of A sampling the delights of drug dealers-owned Florida before flying up to New York to check if the snow storms have ceased. Meanwhile, as usual, Blighty suffered remnants of the same weather after it crossed the Atlantic but mostly petered out before it hit Merseyside. The temperature was tolerable as long as the wind stayed away. The minute it gusted you felt like you were in one of the refrigerators in the meat-packing district in NY. Fine rain felt like tiny ice picks in your skin. It kept trying to sleet and snow but never quite made it. And twenty-two men were about to attempt professional football in it. You didn’t know who was crazier, them or us.

Sausage, as virulently anti-pink as ever, asked, “If Man United fans live in Essex and Chelsea fans live in Torquay, where do ‘shite fans live?” and before you could answer he said, ”…………in the past!” This accords neatly with recent events at analfield. Our amusement is intense. Make the most of it. We’re due to play them in a few weeks. In the meantime it is your sworn duty to take the piss out of the pinks as often as possible. If they keep turning all those corners eventually they’ll disappear up their own arse. Don’t say it too loudly though. You know how sensitive they are down there in Cornwall.

A good crowd inside The Old Lady. And in fine spirits too. The anticipation had a real edge to it. These days we get the feeling Wenger is distinctly nervous about playing us. Which is nice, but fuck all compared to the nerves WE feel about playing THEM. Times change, fortunes fluctuate. Take nothing for granted. We had Nige-Tony-Stubbsy-Unsy-Nace-Slaphead-Li Tie-Killa-The Rad-The Big Yin-The Duke. They had all kinds of foreigners plus shithead Henry (season’s opener NOT forgotten or forgiven) and narkyandwayward Ashley Cole. On paper it looked no contest. We were playing three strikers against the finest pure football team in Britain, possibly in Europe – though the latter still awaits full proof.

For the first ten minutes that’s how it played. A Gooner’s goal looked imminent. There they were, all the usual tight passing in triangles, then the longer pass for someone to run onto and knock in while our heads were spinning in all directions, to say nothing of our natural gyroscopes in disarray. Against this kind of opposition we usually leak one after about ten minutes. But this time we got beyond that and began to make a real nuisance of ourselves.

The only one who couldn’t do anything right was Li Tie; poor bugger, he was right out of his depth this time. Even his first touch deserted him. Given his midfield opponents it wasn’t entirely surprising but the extent of his deterioration was. He couldn’t do anything right. I expected him to be substituted at any minute. Thing is, Moyesy persevered with him and showed real patience and loyalty until it got impossible. The end may be nigh.

In fact the game settled into a sharp midfield battle for most of the game. There were few chances and those which did come usually came about through a moment’s weakness or indecision. In the end their ‘keeper had more to do than Nige. It was that kind of game, edgy excitement, lots of physical commitment and plenty of good passing movement, the kind of combination which marks out the unique attractions of the English game even now. In the conditions it was remarkable.

The most obvious feature of the night was the sheer terror caused by The Big Yin. Do not think I exaggerate. At one free kick I noted he was surrounded by Cygan, Sol Campbell and Paddy Vieira. It was like watching four mobile Eiffel Towers. The encouraging thing was the Yin didn’t slow and gave as good as he got – and that was a lot. He was pushed, pulled, kicked, tripped, elbowed and generally buffeted from the opening right through until the end. More to the point, his heading was much better – when he got to the ball, that is – accurate little backward and sideward dinks to one of ours instead of those towering, winning butts which end up nowhere except at the feet of grateful waiting defenders. Maybe the lesson has been learned, maybe the penny has dropped. We’ll see. We’ve passed this way before. But let’s not be churlish. It was an outstanding performance and the fans adored it.

The Tony-Slaphead right side duo had their work cut out all night but stuck with it and made only the occasional slip. Hibbo hit only one lousy cross all night. Left side, Nace and Killa threatened to make many a breakthrough but Arsenal were much stronger on that side. Unsy and Stubbsy were like rocks at centre back, the very place we all thought would collapse quickest.

The combined midfield performance was the best I have seen this season, even allowing for Li Tie and the missing Gravedigger. You see them win and pass the ball like this and you can’t help wonder why they’re such shite against poor or mediocre teams.

We finally let one through on the half hour mark and slightly against the run of play. For once Unsy didn’t get a tackle in properly when Kanu took a pass from Lungeberg (yes, yes, I know his real name, someone in the Street End dubbed him after a few nasty tackles and snarls) and drove the ball past Nige from left of the penalty spot. Up to that point their only other effort had been a long range shot by the same player after a couple of minutes. In the meantime Ashley Cole nearly oggied after being panicked by The Yin.

Then five minutes later came a Duke miss to rank with anything The Rad has ever managed. Wide left, midway in their half, Killa dropped his shoulder a couple of times and sent two Gooners the wrong way. Clear, he crossed a magnificent ball which destroyed their entire defence and landed right on the incoming Duke’s head, dead centre, nobody near and open goal beckoning. He headed it. Wide. Well, I’m being charitable there. He leapt into it an excitable fraction of a second too early and it hit him on his left temple and screwed very wide. I bet it keeps him awake until the next match.

Still, half time and only one goal down and looking at least as good as them. We remembered last season. Apparently, so did they. Or it might have been the (inevitable) half time substitution of Toby for Lie Tie. As we know, in similar circumstances often this has given us an edge in midfield. In fact I only recall Toby losing one tackle before the end of the game. It must be like being hit by a minibus full of bricks. He had them all tumbling, Vieira, Lungeberg, Campbell (when he ventured out of the D), Parlour, Pires, you name them. Noticeably, Henry stayed well clear…………in fact he stayed well clear of almost everybody all night, defensive slips apart. And so we gained superiority in similar fashion to last season. They seemed genuinely apprehensive, which was satisfying in the extreme and which led to three bookings. At one point we had a couple of free kicks on the edge of the box left of the D and you could see their defenders almost gulping down the paracetamol. Nothing came of them, a gaping deficiency since Pembo left.

The Ears came on for Killa with twenty minutes left and five minutes later played a crucial part in the equaliser. Right side, a long punt from Nige got nodded on by The Yin just beyond the centre circle. The Ears quickly turned Cole, who should have cleared anyway, but didn’t, and got clear into the penalty area with only the ‘keeper to beat. It was an awkward angle but not impossible. Still, he had Cole desperately breathing down his neck. It became a head-high cross-shot which their ‘keeper saved well but could only knock wide to our left. Whence came The Rad at a phenomenal rate of knots and hooked it in left-footed pronto before their defence could put matters right. It was just reward for a sterling display. His pace continues to be electrifying and his work rate exemplary.

The last fifteen minutes were as edgy as the first seventy-five. Nevertheless, the general feeling was that if anyone was going to win, it was us. Which nearly happened when we almost had a Déja Duke. He went on a run from wide left that took him past a couple of flying tackles, but before he could release a full blooded shot the Gooners threw a few desperate bodies in the way and it got blocked. If that had gone in I’m not at all sure the structure of The Old Lady could have withstood the acoustic assault.

So we got a draw and an unexpected point. Very nice. As I write, we are still eleventh. If we can come out of the next fixtures higher than we are now it might indicate a modest revival of fortunes. But for the moment this is a perfectly acceptable result. Enjoy.

Quotes

Moyesy says: "I never felt we deserved to be behind and we didn't half stick at it to get the equaliser. We played really well and the crowd were right behind us because they could see were doing everything to score. We played it at a high tempo because it's what we do best. We certainly deserved at least a point and if we had not equalised it would have been a travesty. We were very attack-minded from the start. We decided to have a go for it and see if we could do something at home. With Thomas Gravesen and Alex Nyarko not playing, I thought we would be better having more forwards and trying to get the ball to them more. Nigel had one stop to make in the first half and one in the second but other than that he did not have much to do, which was a credit to him and the players in front of him." (08/01/04)

Off The Ball (Loads)

* One minutes silence held for the great TG Jones, who died recently. You could hear a pin drop.

* The Arsenal mascot, must have had his Shredded Wheat, as he towered over half the players.

* The ball boy, who was fed up with Arsenal's time wasting. So he through the ball hard at Lauren's nuts, to the delight of the Street End.

* Two of England's Rugby World Cup hero's & Evertonians, Matt Dawson & Mark Regan showing off their medals & Everton shirts.

* Big Dunc having a non stop verbal battle with the Arse goalie, Leamans.

* Big Dunc losing his shirts, bearing his arse to the Bullens Road.