Well its not often that I will congratulate a ref in one of my match reports, and especially not someone like Old Mother Riley, but yesterday the said ref got it spot on, and Everton duly collected three points as a result. After the madness of kopite Clattenburg the other week, my faith has been fleetingly restored, well at least till the next match by the men in black. Why I hear you all cry, or is that just the missus burning me bacon butties, well I will tell you. With minutes to go, a Brum player goes down feigning injury, and his own team mates do not put the ball out. With Everton winning back possession, Tiny Tim sportingly put the ball into touch so the player could receive treatment much to our annoyance with just minutes left on the clock. On play resuming Kapo, Brum's ginger haired odd ball, booted the ball out for a throw deep into Everton's half. The crowd and the players reacted to the ref, and in fairness to Old Mother Riley, he made a point of pointing to his watch for all the crowd to see to say you won't be getting away with that you cheat (that's called poetic licence, you know). As a consequence four minutes injury time went on the board, Steve Bruce raged aka Alex Ferguson style, I chuckled and Harry Hill and Vaughny just done what their paid to do, and put the Blues three points better off in the League Table, ironically deep in injury time.

Ok, it was not all down to that moment, but for me it was a pivotal point late on in the game. The Blues first half performance albeit the last ten minutes was off the highest quality. Stevie P, is looking more and more the player Moyesy promised us, and The Yak had by far his best game in a Blue shirt. It may be no coincidence that he looks a lot fitter than a few months ago, and maybe the keys to the Fridge have been hidden away by the backroom boys. Stubbsey went off early doors with an injury but the Jag slotted in neatly at centre half, looking far more comfortable there than in any of his midfield soirees. It was the Yak who put a lovely finishing touch to a superb Everton move including Mikky and Peanuts to hand the Blues a fully deserved 1-0 lead after nine minutes. The Blues should have put the game to bed by half time, but it was not to be, and as Sausage was sent off to the Chang and sausage roll shop at half time we pondered what the second period had in store.

Half Time: EVERTON 1 Birmingham 0

After our said beers and tuck and chatting about what an honour it was to have Howard Kendall Everton's Greatest Manager on the pallets in the Bluekipper Lounge prior to kick off, we sat back in our pews expecting the goals to flow. Well we were in for a shock, as our first half performance was a distant memory as the game became one of poor passing, and quality all round. Of course there were glimpses of skill, as whenever Mikky is on the ball an air of anticipation and excitement gets to you, and with Peanuts joining in the skill factor at times was excellent. However hard we tried though, we could not put the resilient Brummies.

With ten left on the clock, Bruce brought on Forssell as Brum had a corner. As he ran into the area from the dug out, you could sense Everton's unease over who to mark as the new face joined the attack. That unease cost us a goal as that man Kapo steered the corner home to bring the scores level.

Moyesy's response was instant as James Vaughan made his long awaited Goodison return replacing Ossie. You had the gut feeling though that if we could not break Brum down from a winning position our job would now be ten times harder as they would defend even more for their life. Everton pushed and Tommy Grav joined the party looking for a way through to get the points. Now into injury time and after another goal mouth scramble the ball fell to Harry Hill on the right hand edge of the eighteen yard box, and he unleashed an unstoppable shot past Taylor to send Goodison into raptures. What a strike, from Lee who is not famed for his long range efforts, but this one was up there with the best of the weekend in the Premiership. Better was still to come as Brum pressed up from the kick off, the returning James Vaughan was put clear by Harry Hill. The youngster showed his strength and skill by holding off Brum's pressure, and he drilled his shot low into the Street End net to seal all three points.

Old Mother blew up, and Goodison went mental, and it is great to be there on days like that, but not good on the heart. Give me a comfortable two nil win, done before half time any day. The players were that delighted they embarked on a lap of honour, quite bizarre, but great for the fans as we all stayed back to cheer our heroes on.

So that's four wins on the bounce, two back to back Prem wins, and its Nuremberg on Thursday in the UEFA Cup. On the pitch things are definitely on the way up for the Blues. We have stayed in the top ten even with Tiny, AJ and Vaughny out for most of the season. Last eight of the League Cup, in the Group Stages of a European Competition, and like most Blues there is more often a smile on my face than my usual grimace. Things could have been different leaving Goodison yesterday, if the two injury time goals had not gone for us, our smiles would have been long faces, but they were not, and we drank long into the night.

Starman, there were a few candidates. Peanuts for one, Mikky as ever, but The Yak gets the nod from me, in his best game in a Blue shirt to date. His goal, his lays off, and on occasions holding the ball up when needed. He is at a club were all the players play for each other, look out for each other, and at long last the message seems to be sinking in with him. Well played Yak, keep it up, the boy and the boys done well.

Full Time: EVERTON 3 Birmingham 1

Team Work: Cahill & Arteta

The Yak On Blob

Lavo Reports from Goodison Park

Today's Blue Kipper Star Man

Star Man

Stats

Goals

Bad Boys

Prem Table

 

 

Belter

 

 

Injury Time

 

 

 

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