" Its A Grand Old Team To Play For....."
 Sunday 16th November 2008 / Kick Off: 1:30pm (Live On The Old Goggle Box)
EVERTON
1
v
1

Boro'

    Goalscorers: Yakubu  Att: 31,063

Everton: Howard, Neville, Yobo, Jagielka, Lescott, Arteta, Felliani, Cahill, Osman, Yakubu, Saha.

Bench: Piennar (Osman), Vaughan (Yakubu), Castillo, Nash, Baines, Anichebe (Cahill), Hibbert

Referee: Howard Webb (Ol' Baldy Chops)

What a difference one month makes? After a woeful start to the season when we were struggling for points and players and slipping down the league, today we found ourselves in 7th place, unbeaten in four, including a couple of clean sheets and with a chance of going up to 6th place with a win. Not only that but instead of pulling the kids in off their paper round to fill the bench and sometimes a couple of places in the team, Moyesy had an excess of talent to choose from.

Talk all week had been about The Yak, injured last week and not scoring for over two months, Moyesy was bulling the large fella up. Basil Rathbone was delighted to be treating The Yak, for the first time ever he had a chance of using that long spiky thing in his Swiss Army knife. You see The Yak had a hoof injury, so Basil used his knife to remove the stone and relieve the big Nigerian. Now 'big' is the word when you are talking about The Yak, he does seem to have gone back to the shape he was in when we signed him, he appears to have beefed it back on, a bit like all of us! A couple of things prove this, firstly Moyesy will not put The Yak on the bench - as the bench is not strong enough. Secondly, apparently, The Yak's missus climbed over him to get into bed this week and burnt her bum on the light bulb!

So Moyesy had a selection dilemma, Peanuts back from injury with The Yak and Screech back from suspension, after last week's demolition (only joking) of the 'appy 'ammers, who was going to be the fall guy. Now Sunday matches, courtesy of the lovely SKY, really piss us off, usually it's 4pm and the day is really knackered, at least today was 1.30pm, still a pisser though, hate it. We now have guest speakers in the BK lounge AFTER the match as there is no time before, work that one out?


Talking of working it out, Moyesy thought 4-4-2 was the answer, The Yak and Kay up front (Kay Saha, Saha, whatever will be, will be....) with Screech returning in midfield, Ossy on the right and Our Tater on the left with Timmy dropping back into the middle. Room mates Timmy and Tater have come in for some stick of late, Timmy is not firing and Tater, well Tater get poorer every game and that is mild, he could be described as shite, just like his delivery of free kicks and corners. So big improvement required today lads please.

Boro like ourselves were on a good run, just behind us in the league and not lost in four so this was not going to be easy and so it prove.
Our home form has been calamitous, just one win so far, a piss poor return, so really today was a MUST WIN game, put the others around us in their place and send a message to the rest above us that we are on their tails. Yet after only just 7minutes we found ourselves behind to a very well organised and hard working Boro team, even if they all do have six fingers and four toes. We were caught wanting on the break, Boro won the ball and we were on the back foot, Joey nowhere to be seen and Our Tater running back, sorry he was not running that was a poor description, Downing found O'Neill who was all alone on the edge of the box, Roger tried desperately to at as both centre half and full back but his last gasp lunge was not enough and Tim Howard was beaten on his near post.

One down and up against it. In fairness we gave it a go, with gusto rather than craft, skill and guile. The Yak and a baldy Kay were building up a bit of an understanding, Kay flicked on and The Yak bustled through leaving just the keeper to beat but he has not scored for two months and sure enough, the keeper saved. There were two more close call before the break, firstly Roger broke down the left and crossed, it was a cross but it beat the keeper, bounced back of the post and Screech shot but it was blocked, there was subsequent mayhem in the area but it was cleared. Next it was a chance for Timmy, from a corner he rose like a John West only to nut the ball wide when you would have bet your ever increasing mortgage on him finding the net. We also had a couple of penalty claims knocked back by the first bloke to swim the Channel or was he the bloke who has had the most Xmas No. 1's. Either way, we went into the break one down.

HALF TIME EVERTON 0 Boro 1

Now since The Yak left Boro we have normally beaten them, they never score against us for fuck's sake! What was going on? Moyesy must have given them a rollicking, he sent them out early, maybe to see a true winner, Derek Temple was just off the pitch having been introduced to the crowd following his 70th birthday, hope you had a good one Derek.

We were looking for a good one and certainly we got a good start. We penned Boro in and kept up wave after wave of attack. Ossy went close and so did Kay with a diving header, Boro were reduced to attacking on the break but to be honest they did not look like adding to their score, you felt that if we got one then we would go on to get the winner. The leveller came on 65 mins from an Our Tater free kick, yes Our Tater delivered an assist! He crossed from the free kick and it went in off the back of The Yak, when you haven't scored for two months it does not matter how they go in, game on!

Twenty five mins to go and you would have thought that we would have gone for the jugular? In fact, it could have gone either way, Tim pulled off a couple of good saves at our end whilst The Yak at the other end had a great chance to double his tally but he pulled his effort well wide.

We brought on Peanuts who did well and should now consign Ossy to the bench, along with Big Vic and Vaughny but all to no avail and it ended all square. Disappointing, we have now won one out of seven home games yet we are 7th in the Prem, 6 points out of 21, whilst it is not good to watch at present, we could be in the top four if we could win at home. Having said that, there are only two teams in the league who have not lost in their last five games and the Toffee's are one of them (Boro is the other).

We would have won with more layers on form but we are still carrying a few, particularly Tater, Joey did well at the back as did Tim when called upon, The Yak and Kay worked hard and Fella did well in the middle but the Blue Kipper Starman today was the much maligned Phil 'pretty boy' Neville, he always wears his heart on his sleeve next to his captain's armband, he was faultless in defence, joined the attack on every possible occasion putting in some quality crosses and he also show a few Brazilian lie skills in the second half - well played Phil, have a word with a couple of team mates.

Full Time EVERTON 1 Boro 1


Andy's Rankin
Marks Out Of 10
Player Marks Player Marks
Tim Howard
7
James Vaughan
n/a
Phil Neville
8
Victor Anichebe
Joey Yobo
7
Stephen Piennar
Joleon Lescott
6
 
 
Phil Jagielka
7
Mikel Arteta
6
Leon Osman
7
Tim Cahill
7
Louis Saha
7
   
Maro Felliaina
6
   
Yakubu
7
   
Official Match Photos

 


 

Quotes After The Game

Moyesy says: "We played better, but I'm disappointed we didn't get all three points. We had one or two chances and in the end we huffed and puffed but didn't really do enough. There's no doubt the performance was better (than recent games), so today I was happy with the performance but not happy with the points. If we continue to keep getting draws against the Middlesbrough's, it will become an issue that we're not getting the points at home.

We have to credit the opposition. We scored from a set-piece but I wanted us to score in open play. I think that we had the chances but didn't take them.

I thought the Yak played much better and I think it was a much better team performance. I think Tim Cahill and Fellaini played well. I thought that there were a lot of plusses to come out of the game, but when we conceded early on we were always chasing it and there was a bit of anxiety. Teams are organised in the Premier League and they were a threat on the counter attack so I have to credit our defenders. I thought they did very well and Phil Jagielka had a superb tackle at the end of the game." (16/11/08)

Off The Ball

See anything unusual or funny at the match today? e-mail info@bluekipper.com

*

Fans Match Report

IF ANY EVERTON FAN WANTS TO WRITE A REPORT OF ANY OF THIS SEASON'S GAMES, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO SO. JUST E-MAIL IT TO info@bluekipper.com AND WE WILL PUT IT HERE.

 

Whose At The Bluekipper Lounge

Eastoe...Eastoe..

Members Notice: 115 Appearances (7 as sub), and 33 goals over 3 seasons. Who can forget the FA Cup 4th Round in 1981 when the Blues beat the shite 2-1 thanks to goals from Imre Varadi and Bluekipper's special guest on Sunday Peter Eastoe. Joining the Blues from QPR in 1979, Peter Eastoe formed fruitful partnerships with the likes of Brian Kidd, Imre Varadi and of course Big Bob Latchford.

Peter will be on the pallets after Sundays match with Boro, and members are asked to get drunk and enjoy themselves. Please Bring Your Membership Cards. (13/11/08)

Players At The Blue Kipper Lounge

Scores On The Doors

What Do You Think The Score Will Be? e-mail info@bluekipper.com

* 2-0 to the Blue Boys. First goal from The Yak. David Mann

* 4-2 to Everton. Arteta, Saha, Osman and Yak to score. Cookie

Everton Team News

The Yak is back, and so is Peanuts for that matter, so Moyesy has nice selection posers ahead of our clash with Boro. Louis Saha will be a hard one to drop after his two goal winning salvo last week, but The Yak is a hard man to leave out. OK, so we will go four, four two, but Peanuts is a must to start in the middle, so who makes way, as Moyesy as all the midfielders to pick from. Rather his choice than mine as the Blues look to go four wins on the trot. Maro Fellaini is also returns after his enforced absence due to suspension, so the bench will look strong if nothing else.

Boro and The Blue are the Premiership form sides at the moment, with Boro also defending a four game unbeaten run, and the Teesiders will be after revenge after we did the double over them last season. The omens look good for the Blues as we have collected 13 points out of the last possible 15 against North-East clubs, shit what have I said now.

Everton v Boro Last Season

Moyesy says: "I am impressed, we are in a good league position and the players have performed really well in as far as we have got results and we have come back from behind in several games so that is good. I would hope we would improve though. We would like to ensure the performances get back to the ones from last season. I don't think we are too far away, we have started to get the results and that builds confidence and self-belief.

Yakubu we hope will be okay. He’s trained so hopefully we’ll have him back in the squad and hopefully fit and available. I’ve started to make changes from the bench that have changed the game," he declared.

I’m going to be able to do that again this weekend if required because we’ve got people fit and available to play. It's now beginning to look like the players who missed the start of preseason are back to full fitness so hopefully the squad is coming together." (15/11/08)

Joggers's XI To Start: Howard, Neville, Yobo, Lescott, Jagielka, Arteta, Pienaar, Felliani, Cahill, Yakubu, Saha

Everton from: Howard, Nash, Neville, Hibbert, Yobo, Jagielka, Lescott, Baines, Valente, Rodwell, Arteta, Castillo, Fellaini, Osman, Pienaar, Cahill, Vaughan, Saha, Yakubu, Anichebe.


Ahhhh Grass Hopper


Stop Your Jibber Jabber Fool


In The Goals

IF ANY EVERTON FAN WANTS TO WRITE A REPORT OF ANY OF THIS SEASON'S GAMES, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO SO. JUST E-MAIL IT TO info@bluekipper.com AND WE WILL PUT IT ON THE SITE.

Lavo's Best Bet

* We didn't lose last week on The Yak, only for the fact that he did not start against De Hammers. If the forward does start on Sunday our tenner will be duly ledged, but even his odds of 5/1 for the first goal will not pull us out of the shite.

The Yak is up against one of his former clubs in Boro, so I fully expect him to start pulling us out of the doo daa soon, hopefully his winnings can get the ale in for us at last.

If The Yak is not your cup of tea, the Blues are a straight even money for a home win against a team who we have a habit of beating at Goodison. To good to miss that one.

Yakometer

13 Bets -£70

About The Opposition

Gareth Southgate is expected to name an unchanged side, with defender David Wheater again having to settle for a place on the bench. Top scorer Mido is still struggling to overcome a groin injury.

Gareth says: "We've got a game on Sunday that if we win it, we go above them. That's significant because they are a club that we greatly admire for what they've achieved in the last few years. Historically they are a massive club so for us to be within that sort of touching distance is a great incentive for us."

Boro From: Turnbull, Hoyte, Taylor, Riggott, Pogatetz, O'Neil, Digard, Aliadiere, Downing, Tuncay, Alves, Jones, Wheater, Grounds, Arca, Walker, Johnson A, Emnes.


Gareth Being Interviewed Whilst On The Kazi


Match Reports 2008/2009             

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