Could we do it? That was the question. What no team has done for 14 games, with the support of the whole country bar Chelski & redshite fans, could we beat the Cockney Billionaires?

The signs were not good, we usually lose to teams from the smoke, they hadn't conceded a goal since Bonetti was between the sticks, they're minted and we're skint, the list goes on BUT we are Toffeemen and the Toffeemen NEVER let you down.

We knew we would be without Hibbo for the first time in the Prem this season as he had accumulated his quota of yellows and as expected Pisto went to right back and Nace the Pier Head Tramp came in at left back. Ozzy was expected to be fit but didn't make it but the big surprise was the omission of Jimmy Mac - not even on the bench, Benty rightly regained his place after some storming performances of late.
It was fuckin' freezin and blowing a gale, the pitch had purposefully not been relaid so with the majority of their side used to warmer climates and bowling green pitches we had a leveller. Now my worry was that with a 12.45pm ko that the Toffeemen in the crowd would not have time to get juiced up, well the roar that greeted the team showed that most had gone straight through! The crowd were well up for it and so were the team, who despite losing the toss got stuck in from the off, Chelski were trying to stroll it round, difficult on the cabbage patch, we were looking to get stuck in and release Benty with his pace.

There were groans when the ref was announced, it was Mike - I love Man Ure - Riley, if this bloke is amongst the best we have got in this country then we have got severe problems. At times he has no got a fuckin clue & as for his linesmen, well they may well as not been there! Particularly infuriating was his performance at free kicks, he puts the ball down, says wait for the whistle and steps out 10 paces, turns away and the wall walks forward! It happened on at least three occasions and he does fuck all. More about him later, suffice to say that he refereed today as though he had some German relatives, some of whom maybe in the same profession and have been in the press recently!

So after a bright start disaster struck on 8 mins. James Beattie was chasing a long ball going nowhere into the corner by the Church at the Street End, Terry was going to get there first and Gallas obstructed Beattie, Gallas ran forward and again shielded Beattie. Now recently Chelski have been seen to use some WWF tactics from free kicks & corners, Beattie had obviously had this in mind and watched some old Big Dunc videos pre-match because what happened next was a disgrace. He assaulted him from behind, clearly pissed off at being obstructed once he clambered over Gallas and butted him in the back of the head. Yes it was clumsy, yes Gallas went down like a bag of shite and yes it was a straight red - but what a plonker, fucked us against Chelsea - as if it wasn't difficult enough at the start, fucked us against Man U next week and also misses Villa away and Blackburn at home, well thanks very much James, your first game back is against the redshite and boy do you owe us BIG TIME, a hat-trick and 3 points might start to erase the memory.

10 men and under the cosh. Chelsea had all the possession and probed mainly through Duff but we defended brilliantly, Duff got no change out of Pisto so was switched to have a go at Nace. They huffed and puffed but we held firm, when they did have a half chance Big Nige was looking good. Just when you thought things couldn't get worse, Timmy the Blue Kangaroo was booked for a foul on that crab-like cheat Makele and that means he's missing from Man U too. At this point Big Keith was summoned to contact the FA to see if he could cancel Nick Chadwick's transfer papers!

We did well to finish the half all square and the Blues went off to a standing ovation, Riley went off to a crescendo of boo's! His performance was bizarre, he had done us twice yet not punished a blatant dive on the edge of our box by Cole, and Lamplardarse pushing Carsley in the face for a straight red, Riley went down the tunnel like a rat up a drainpipe, straight to his room to check if the brown envelope had arrived.

HALF TIME 0-0

We all agreed that it would be difficult to hold out, surely we would tire chasing all the time - so it proved. What we couldn't agree on was who was up for the fight and who wasn't, surely Joey was given a bollocking at the interval because he was a different player after the break. Davey and Stubbsy were in 'thou shalt not get past' attitude and we weathered the early storm.

We were reduced to lumping it up to Benty who ran his heart out, when we did get a break like the odd corner or long throw into the box then the delivery was genuinely poor.

The inevitable came with 20 mins to go, Nace was slow to close down, a cross came in from the right and Gallas appeared to head onto the bar, it fell to Gudjohnsen on the far post and he had an easy tap in. We had done brilliantly to last out this long, by now Beattie must have been showered, changed and squirming in his seat watching our demise.

We brought Big Dunc on, who did his best to ruffle some feathers he chased and put himself about, one cameo where he jumped then fell to the ground wrestling their sub was vintage. The closest we came was a header from Harry Hill from a set piece cross and it flew straight into the hands of Cech proving today was not to be.
Our Tetta came on for the last 10 mins and showed some nice touches, making us wonder why he wasn't on earlier - saving him for next week.

All in all, bitterly disappointing. Game over as a contest after 8 mins, we defended brilliantly and came out at the end with credit despite being up against the Premier run away leaders and Mike Riley!

Some sterling performances today, Big Nige couldn't be faulted, Stubbsy & Weir did well and Benty ran his socks off, my Blue Kipper Star Man goes to the first Premiership player ever to wear suspenders, Pippy Longstocking - Sandro Pisto - he sent Duff packing, put a foot in and spoiled throughout and got forward whenever he could.

At least the shite got beat and we are still 5 points clear with 11 games to go and maybe The Manc's will play their second string next week - I'm off out to get pissed and seek out some beautiful woman and woo her with fine wine and Belgian chocolates!

FULL TIME 0-1

Sandro and Benty Both Battle For The Ball

Swiss Toni Reports from Goodison Park

Blue Kipper Star Man

 

Worked Hard

 

 

Top Draw

 

 

Booked

The Longest Day
By
Mickey Blue Eyes

It helps sometimes to get away to much more important concerns than the trivia of mere football, professional or otherwise. Sensible people know this very well. Which is one of the reasons I haven’t bothered with one of these opinion efforts since we beat Portsmouth at home on January 3rd. Other more pressing matters called. After all, it is still only a hobby to those with a proper sense of perspective.

Meantime, I have managed to keep my finger on the playing pulse and have missed only the games at Plymouth and Middlesbrough. Since my last effort we have won at Plymouth, drawn at Middlesbrough and Southampton, lost to Charlton at home, and beaten Sunderland and Norwich at home, a mixed bag from which we might have expected more in earlier circumstances. However, circumstances are not the same. Tommy Gravesen and Kevin Campbell have both left after five years, and so has Nick Chadwick. Our only other incomers were Mikael Arteta and a young unknown Frenchman. Leon Osman hasn’t been in the first team for various reasons. And the incoming of James Beattie has ensured inevitable disruption of team blend and chemistry. Yet still we are in fourth position and Moyesy quite rightly claims he looks upward, not downward in assessing the club’s progress. This is just as well since likely he will be involved in rebuilding the team yet again during the summer. The process never stops and never will, but is dictated by pecunary circumstances. That is the reality. Anyone who thinks otherwise would be better off watching or playing ludo.

The major event outside the club is the ongoing saga of the attempted takeover of Manchester United. This hugely superficially funny (and unwelcome) development involves an American trying to buy a controlling interest from two Irishmen – one of who got involved in a court case over a race horse with the Scottish manager – while a Welsh player says he supports the Irishmen. Meanwhile, the American, his family, and any director who supports him has been physically threatened by a group of loonies calling themselves the Manchester Educashun Committee. (Okay, okay, I mispelled the word “education,” but you get the idea). The “Committee” are on a sure fire loser, as they should be. Anyone who threatens violence should be securely locked away for, say, two life terms in a straitjacket. I hope the police find out who is at the bottom of it and do what’s necessarry in a civilized society. The Department of Trade and Industry will not intervene this time because there are no grounds – as there was when Rupert Murdoch tried the same thing – for intervention. If it doesn’t go ahead it won’t be because of threats. There will be other reasons. And before any Evertonian gets too self-righteous about this, we have already had similar threats made against directors and individuals at Goodison, to say nothing of the kind of madness delivered through the mail system that, if you saw it, would turn your stomach at the depths to which some members of the human species can fall.

Why be surprised? In the aggregate of all clubs there are enough football hate-manufacturers and crazy lynch mob mentalities out there to fill Broadmoor. When these madmen fail to place a persuasive argument there are only two things left: the cheap, small change of personal abuse and physical threats. It goes without saying these people are big-mouthed cowards with the axe of an inferiority complex to grind. Football is probably their only refuge in life. Likely the source will be the same unreconstructed middle-aged thugs who almost destroyed the game with nazi-type violence and racism in the seventies and eighties, plus the more recent addition of second and third-rate greasy, mousse-haired spivs. Thus, the advent of the so-called “Premier” League has helped to encourage a different type of poisoned tribalism in the game and mixed it with the kind of raddled shysters and inadequates you’ll find festering in the corner of every cheap and grubby ale-house in the country.

Nothing will change until the game is reorganised top to bottom by humanist legislation and the fans organise themselves as admirably and effectively as the more articulate and informed Manchester United fans did to defeat Murdoch’s unwanted attempted monopolist buy-out. I have no doubts the same fans will make similar efforts to resist Glazer, but this time with much less chance of success, though I wish them well in their efforts. As matters stand if Glazer gets sufficiently determined, organised and coherent there won’t be much they can do about it. His financial reserves will see to that. Our whole system of government will ensure he goes on his way unmolested. So……………change the system or tolerate it.

Moyesy has of necessity been changing our own playing system. As we all know, the departed Gravedigger has left, er, a hole to be filled. None of the current midfield players has been able to compensate. The result has been a series of unsatisfactory and uneven displays marked by enormous physical effort but only small glimpses of the neat footy played up to the transfer window. We must hope Arteta can get settled and live up to his apparent earlier reputation. If he does he may be better than adequate. At Southampton there were one or two encouraging features in his play after you discount the almost immediate yellow card (which I thought should have been a red) and a suicidal loose pass that almost leaked a goal. But that game was easily our worst display of the season, Tottenham included. Only Moyesy-induced fitness and determination encouraged yet another late rescue of our fortunes.

Which is why I thought we would be soundly beaten when we played Chelsea even though they haven’t played as convincingly since Christmas. Furthermore, the Goodison playing area is quite awful these days. Gawd knows why. And it was midday kickoff, enough to throw out your biorhythms if you have any.

In the end it was pretty much the game I thought it would be. We didn’t really get a sniff despite a lot of huff and puff. For some reason, Beattie was suddenly injected with too much huff after ten minutes and went after their centre back with a vengeance and butted him twice in the back of his head. The victim rode the first one out and then collapsed in an exaggerated heap after the second. No matter, no question it was a red. Which is about the only thing referee Riley got right all afternoon. How the fellow manages to stay on the referee’s list is quite beyond me. The man is outright incapable of controlling a first class professional football match.

Chelsea commanded the game without persuading anybody they are worthy successors to last season’s immortal Arsenal side. They could have won with more goals had they had more playing courage. Instead, it was a staccato game with a lousy referee and a truly awful pitch. The combination was maddening at times.

Nigel Martyn’s return has been greeted with palpable widespread relief amongst the fans and he didn’t let us down in this game either. More than few shots bumped and fizzed around him until he was beaten by an ultimately scrappy goal with twenty minutes left. Up to then we had performed creditably in defence, badly in midfield and – understandably – non-existently up front. Makele basically did what he wanted in midfield while Tim Cahill struggled to make any sort of impact at all – apart from getting a yellow card – and thus left Lee Carsley exposed too many times. Joey makes great efforts in midfield but he just isn’t a midfield player, he’s a centre back. And if there’s one person who misses Gravesen’s passes, then it is Kevin Kilbane, who spent the afternoon chasing inaccurate long balls. Overall we were left with the impression that had James Beattie shown more professionalism we might well have given Chelsea a reasonable game of it.

Coulda. Shoulda. Mighta. There are those words again.

Next week, the Mancs at home in the Cup. We will be without some key players. Wayne Rooney will be back at Goodison in the wrong shirt, which is why the TV cameras will be there, hoping for an extreme crowd reaction and a “controversy.” After all, someone has to keep the useless media infoclerks in a job. Well, I won’t be booing him. It’s his life. Leave the hate mongering and lynch-mobbing to the Manchester Educashun Committee and their equivalent here. Anybody who reacts stupidly will be giving the media exactly what it wants. Far better just to beat them, though current form says there’s fat chance of it.

But it is The Cup, THE Cup. Anything can happen. In our case, I hope it does. Fervently. (14/02/05)