After the disappointment of Tottenham ideally we could have done with playing the following week but the international break prevented that. As a result I felt the crowd were a touch muted in the run up to the visit of Southampton.
After a poignant well observed minutes silence for Kenneth Bigley, the Blues started brightly. The opening 15 minutes was well controlled but without any real chances being created. Against better opposition this would have been fine, but against a struggling injury hit side the frustration mounted in the crowd too quickly. This was mirrored on the pitch by Tommy screaming to Pistone “hit the corners, hit the corners”. Unfortunately Sandro hit their man far too often, again.

Gravesen was the source of the most of the brighter aspects of Everton’s play and an accurate 40-yard ball found Bent inside their left back. Marcus’s attempted ball to Osman was gathered by Niemi, when shooting seemed the better option. Remember Tricky Trev against Sunderland?
A few minutes later a long-range pass from Gravesen found the impressive Cahill in a wider position. Tim did well to beat the fullback and pulled it back only for Bent to fire over.
The remainder of the 1st half was played out in the same manner. Everton controlling the game and working good positions but not finding the killer pass or a clinical finish. Kilbane fired wide from a well worked free kick and then could only steer wide when stretching to meet a diagonal ball from Gravesen. Cahill missed perhaps the best chance of the half when he volleyed over from the edge of the area after latching on to a flick on. As the half ended Tommy produced a great piece of skill inside their box only to shoot wildly when a pass was probably a better option. This was the story of the first half.

Half Time: EVERTON 0, Soton 0

At the start of the second half it was clear that Moyes had made some changes. No substitutions, but Gravesen was playing behind Bent and the whole team had clearly had a rocket at the interval.

Gravesen soon found Bent with a ball over the top, he did well to get in ahead of the defenders and keeper only for his shot from a tight angle to be cleared for a corner. From the resulting corner Bent’s close range shot was blocked and a couple of headed half chances came form the following corner but still no clear-cut opportunities.

Southampton reminded us that they were here and Stubbs had to put behind after a testing cross came from a counter attack after our play broke down. We then continued to press forward and the neat and industrious Osman fed Bent inside the area whose cross/shot? was put behind by Niemi.

The game continued in a similar vein with thoughts and shouts of “not one of those is it?” starting to ring around Goodison. With less than 15 minutes remaining Moyes replaced a fading Cahill with Ferguson and a mainly ineffective Kilbane (very out of sorts) with McFadden.

Soon after a smart move saw Tony Hibbert race into the area only for his pull back to be cleared easily when a goal looked certain. Then as three “easy” points seemed to be slipping away, Tommy launched a long throw into the Saints area, Duncan’s presence caused problems and Leon managed to control and turn in what seemed like an eternity and fire a winning shot low into the corner.
It was too late for the resilient Southampton team to respond and far too late for our enjoyment, but three points nonetheless.

Tommy Gravesen is my Star Man. Simply because he showed the will to win and was our biggest threat throughout. Please accept him for what he is and enjoy what he does.

Full Time: EVERTON 1, Soton 0

Star Man Tommy Grav Shows 2 Saints His Arse

Ossie Scores The Winner

Lard Reports from Goodison Park

Blue Kipper Star Man

Tommy Grav

Leon
By
Mickey Blue Eyes

Two weeks is a long time without footy.

And since we have more of these international breaks than any of us want maybe we should inflict some pain on those responsible by staying away every now and then. Cliché, but true – the only worthwhile weapon you have at your disposal is the ability to withdraw your money, somewhat like a group of workers whose only ultimate weapon is to withdraw their labour when faced with an intransigent employer. But, as always, you would be in a cleft stick. Withdraw the dosh for any appreciable time and you affect the playing and commercial fortunes of the club. So how far do you go to get what you want in professional football?

The football agent Paul Stretford – like all agents – has an answer: do whatever is necessary. In the recent court case he “broke down” in crocodile tears in the dock a few days before the case in question was dropped because he lied to the court. I have to say both events cheered me immensely even though I knew his recent “commission” (read: institutional bribery and corruption) provided him with £1.5 million from the Rooney transfer. For him, it was enough to mop up the phoney tears and keep a whole pack of wolves from the door. Until the court case came along. Then he resigned as a director, probably to avoid the “fit and proper” thing; you know, the one complied with by paragons such as Robert Maxwell and the Enron directors. Meantime his rotten-to-the-core agency, its shareholders and management, mostly uninvestigated by mainstream media, continue to infest the game with everything that stinks up the place. The sooner the whole lot of them are in jail the better.

Manchester United, self-styled World’s Biggest Club, were subject to a vanity take over bid by a Yank with no genuine knowledge or deep interest in football. Manc fans immediately launched an admirable but useless (if the bidder gets single minded enough) “Not For Sale” campaign. Except their club IS for sale, like every other club. That is the way of the “free” market. They succeeded against Rupert Murdoch’s previous attempted take over purely through anti-monopolies legislation. This time there can be no such objection. That’s the way the system works, like it or not. Organise and CHANGE THE SYSTEM or put up with it. Just don’t whine because you don’t like someone’s personality, a lesson the Everton players learned in spades during and after last season. Now, according to Davey Weir, they’re all playing for extended contracts, which explains their current do-or-die efforts on the pitch. Guess what action Moyesy’s likely to take when he considers their contracts………………..

While all this was going on the national team went and rather easily beat Wales and Azerbaijan in the World Cup qualifiers. I only saw very short clips of the goals and so can’t comment on the overall performances but by all that’s worth watching in the game wasn’t that David Beckham goal simply magnificent? Then he went and spoilt it all by admitting he got himself booked for a lousy “tackle.” By rights he should be done by the FA for bringing the game into disrepute, and have the book not so much thrown at him as wedged sideways in his mouth. I can’t say I was able to follow his “logic” easily but even if I could I’d still say he was an irresponsible twerp of the first magnitude. Maybe the dye from his neck tattoo has finally seeped through to his cerebellum.

Midweek before our game against Southampton their chairman Rupert Lowe survived a proposed vote of no confidence by a small group of fans at the club annual general meeting. I couldn’t help chortling. Attentive fans will know his club, flavour of last season, was yet another tiresome example quoted to us by ingenuous dopes of “how to do it.” Apparently this same group of fans are disenchanted with the start to the season and one or two other things. So now Southampton go the way of all the other examples – Sunderland, Ipswich, Leeds etc. – whose activities were supposed to show us how to sprinkle ourselves with magic dust, make millions and go on to win every trophy in sight. Well, call me old fashioned but I always thought it was a load of bollocks and said so. It isn’t that Southampton and the others were particularly wrong, though some were and very badly so. Nor is it that we couldn’t do much, much better, because we rather obviously can. And will. No, it’s just that too many fans, particularly the chauvinist self-styled know-it-all flakey barrow/bully boys and thugs, seem to think running a football club is like running any other business, or that (laughably) if everything was handed over to them they could do better. But it isn’t, never will be, and they can’t, as events at our own EGM proved so graphically. The moment the game becomes SOLELY a business will be the day it finally loses its best and healthiest aspects. As it would too if ever it got into the hands of said flakes. The lesson appears with such ironic regularity you’d think the penny would have dropped by now. Alas, no. The same whiners and bleaters will always be there. And in seeking to feather their own nests, self “glory” or financially, they push the game that little bit further toward oblivion. Fortunately they are still very much in the minority, though they never learn and never will. The whiners will always be with us and should be mercilessly ridiculed at every opportunity.

Much more encouraging was David Moyes’ contractual negotiations and his public statement that he wants to stay. If talks fail it will be the biggest set back for us since Johnson’s various businesses virtually went belly-up and almost took us with them. Moyesy is an essential part of our future and can only be properly judged when he has finally got rid of the players who have caused us so many dressing-room problems. The proper time will be when he has assembled his own team and we see how he deals with “big name” signings. I hope too he seeks out and gets shut of a couple of information weasels inside or attached to the club. Once the latter are finally identified – and it won’t be long now, the trail gets hotter, a start has already been made – he will have a reasonably clear run. The clear-out process should be interesting as the Keith Wyness tenure gathers pace. Freeloaders and information weasels beware, your days are numbered, your cards marked. Be scared. Be very scared.

Meantime, the money thing, that wretched imperative of the modern footy era, continues behind the scenes. Distant rumbles may well get more interesting in the next few weeks as inevitably tedious attitudes are struck and positions shuffled. I suspect the main problem will be how to make it easier for Paul Gregg to do one and return to the bosom of whatever is necessary without losing face or too much (if any) money. It’s hard to estimate who will heave the bigger sigh of relief at him moving on. Should be interesting to see how many games he comes back to watch if and when he does leave, hoho. Should be even more interesting to find out about the self-named Fortress Sports Fund. Interesting name, that. Interesting individual names quoted in “Private Eye,” too, also hoho. One imagines with high amusement our own homegrown barrow boys frantically trying to scramble on board the gravy train after scamming a few tens of thousands out of our fans.

Match eve you could tell it was getting colder. Fishermen in bright orange all-weather waterproofs, or poor bastards shivering out there from midnight onwards once again speckle the riverfront. It’s a peculiar “sport” by peculiar, lonely masochistic people. And though I know the river is much cleaner these days – sandbanks are back in place of mud banks around the bridge – and projected to get much, much cleaner, you have to wonder what the catchers actually DO with the caught. Is it once again a case of the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible?

Which neatly leads me into the prospects of our beloved team. Are we going to get caught at third place? Well, as we all know, the likelihood is that we will. Unless the players show they have the necessary staying power, we avoid injuries and suspensions, and we get some new and better players in in January. Paradoxically I thought the match against Southampton would give us a clearer idea than any other game. That’s if I could stop laughing at the south coast Southampton branch of the Melledrew Tendency and their weird neuroses. After all, they had loads of players out through injury and we had our best eleven present. Tim Cahill passed a fitness test the morning of the match after the infamous clattering by Redknapp in the Spurs game. If we couldn’t see them off maybe it was all going to go pear-shaped earlier than even we figured.

It was bright, cold day, once again perfect for footy. Pre-match, Moyesy got his richly earned Manager of the Month award. Also, a minute’s silence for local Ken Bigley, murdered in Iraq by symptomatic loonies. Somehow, everything felt a bit sombre thereafter.

Nevertheless, play started reasonably well from our perspective. Once again we indulged in some sharp and attractive passing bouts, frequently just one touch away from making it count. In this fan’s eyes the only draw backs appeared to be the relative slowness of Marcus Bent and Tim Cahill, both of whom have carried recent injuries, as well as Leon Osman’s inability to make his mark despite his gifted first touches. But it was obvious early on this wasn’t going to be Marcus’s day as the ball evaded him at crucial moments or he failed with an important touch. Then he got a breakaway, one on one, which he screwed up. And even though he was offside you could see it affected his match confidence. He was like that all afternoon, sort of desultory.

Midfield was a mix of staccato and brilliant. The brilliance came from – and I shit you not – The Gravedigger’s quite outstanding dribbles and, erm, teasing ball control and passing, and Lee Carsley’s immaculate tackling. You may read that again to confirm the evidence of your own eyes. But as all of us who actually go to the games can tell you, Arsenal match apart, that’s the way it has been in every game. In this match it was just as well really because Tim was fitful and Leon didn’t really get into it. Nor did Kevin Kilbane, but that was more because his good form has been duly noted and he had two men to contend with most of the time. So while we looked good coming forward we couldn’t finish them off. It was never better demonstrated than when we shredded them wide open with a superb left sided cross field move that ended with Tim galloping clear, right side, just inside the box and he hit a screamer just over the bar. At which point everyone looked at each other, raised their eyebrows and went, “Uh oh.”

At the back, Hibbo had some slack moments made all the more acute because the rest of his game was once again spot on. Sandro wasn’t exactly slapdash but he got close to it and consolidated his position as target for the boo boys. Well, there has to be SOMEONE made to pay for team shortcomings. ‘Twas ever thus. Davey and Stubbsy once again gave sterling performances, so much so I made Stubbsy Man of the Match. Nigel Martyn was virtually out of it except for a couple of awkward first half low shots in blinding sunshine into the Street End.

Southampton rarely registered except through determined defence of the point they started with. Given their injuries it was a commendable defensive performance. You could tell what the fans thought by the way they went early for their half time lubrication and by the occasional rumble of annoyance as the final pass didn’t quite make it, or a last second foot deflected the ball out of danger. Though one sided, it had 0-0 written all over it.

The second half started with a five minutes blitzkrieg on the Street End goal. We got a flurry of corners, after which the ball seemed to hang in the air with everyone mesmerised and the crowd screaming to “Gerritin!” Behind me, a strange young man ended all his urgings with the query “ey.” As in, “Cumonboyz, ey?!” and “It’sacornerey?!” Our beloved language was as blitzed as the Southampton goal as the ball kept hitting prone bodies or writhing defenders. Then it fizzled out as quickly as it had blown up and Southampton got a couple of harmless breakaways but didn’t have a clue how to use them. Next to me, Stevie said, “Fuck, this has got Tottenham written all over it.” Substitutions made little difference. It began to drift away despite several promising looking attacks, particularly down the right wing.

But it finally came good a couple of minutes from the end, just as most of us had decided it was two points lost. Another long throw from the right – we’re getting quite good at these – and it ended up at Leon’s feet just right of the penalty spot. It was awkward, off to one side, slightly behind him. No sweat. He killed it with his left, swivelled a la Colin Harvey’s hips, and dinked it right footed on the ground, acute angle, and home. It went under their keeper’s right hand, far corner. The ground went mad.

So another well earned win, no fluke. It could and should have been by a much larger margin. Much more of this and we’ll need oxygen cylinders.