VIEW FROM THE BLUE

Reality Bites

Blackburn Rovers 1-0 Everton

In their quest for the top four and qualification for the Champions League, Everton were given an immediate reality check as a combination of a farcical error by Tim Howard, a worrying lack of creativity and ideas, a general lethargy to their play, and, perhaps, the burden of expectation for a campaign that holds so much promise condemned them to defeat on the opening day of the 2010-11 season.

David Moyes's side had barely had a chance to find their stride before Howard raced to the edge of his area to claim a high-bouncing ball with one arm and contrived to drop it into the lap of Nikola Kalinic, who had an empty net at which to aim to give Blackburn Rovers what proved to be the winning goal in the 15th minute.

That should have provided the catalyst to spark the Everton that powered its way through the second half of last season on the back of top-four form into life, but the response from Moyes's side was so turgid, so lifeless and so depressingly familiar that it put the burgeoning optimism for the new season in a new, disheartening context.

There will be no Champions League for Everton if they continue to play this way. On too many occasions the long ball was employed to break down a robust and muscular defence equipped to deal with just that type of tactic. Louis Saha was, as has so often been the case in his time with us, isolated and forced to chase aimless flick-ons or into aerial battles he had no hope of winning.

From Howard to Sylvain Distin ? admittedly less to blame on this score ? to Jagielka, whose long-range distribution for so highly-regarded a defender is laughable, the patient build-up from the back used so effectively when Everton were at their best last season was persistently eschewed in the first half until the long ball was mostly abandoned after half-time.

There will be no Champions League if the manager doesn't use his best players. Put plainly, no team that boasts Leon Osman as a first-choice starter ? in his weaker, right-midfield role ? has any business in Europe's elite competition and, unfortunately, that fact was rammed home unceremoniously for the 58 minutes that he was on the pitch. Utterly ineffectual even when he briefly moved inside and Arteta went wide right, he was replaced by Jermaine Beckford as Moyes went 4-4-2 for all of 20 minutes while Jack Rodwell watched from the bench until the last 12 minutes.

There will be no Champions League if Moyes himself fails to adapt. Although his team improved markedly in the final 15 minutes before the interval ? they couldn't have got much worse ? it was clear that nothing was really working but no changes to the personnel or approach were made and the first 15 minutes of the second half had disappeared down the drain by time Beckford was given his chance. Unfortunately for him, he barely touched the ball at all until injury time and an extra striker is useless if you don't get the ball to him.

There will be no Champions League if Mikel Arteta doesn't turn up. The club's highest-paid player's head appeared for the first half an hour to still be in the room at Finch Farm where he put pen to paper on a new five-year contract. Even when he did start to come into proceedings more, at no point did he grab the match by the scruff of the neck and really start dictating things for his team. Tim Cahill, another player who has just extended his stay at Goodison, wasn't much better.

Instead, Steven Pienaar, the "contract rebel" who has yet to commit himself to Everton either way, was the one showing any real initiative and he, along with the impressive Leighton Baines, was the only one who looked likely to make anything happen.

There will be no Champions League if we defend as poorly as this. Blackburn are an ordinary side with an ordinary defence but while they were organised and repelled almost eveything that was thrown at them, Everton's looked panicky and disorganised, the central defensive pairing of Jagielka and Distin never looking entirely comfortable. We can also kiss the top four goodbye if we can't rely on a world-renowned goalkeeper like Howard not to merely give goals away through lapses in concentration. His was a mistake made under very little pressure and no contact ? he simply dropped the ball because he chose to take it with one hand rather than firmly grasping it with two.

All of this was made more frustrating by the fact that Blackburn are a decidedly limited and workmanlike team. What they had going for them was hard work and a consistent shape, though; they dared the visitors to break them down and Everton had few answers. It may have been a meaningless friendly but the warning signs of a team not quite ready for the big kick-off were all there in Wolfsburg last weekend.

Blackburn clearly looked the more ready and able in the early going at Ewood Park this afternoon but when Olsson beat the offside trap and found himself one-on-one with Howard in only the second minute he knocked the ball over the advancing 'keeper and the crossbar.

And after Howard and dropped his clanger it took Everton 15 minutes to muster their first shot on goal when Cahill scuffed an effort into Robinson's arms after Osman had seen his shot charged down. Saha then robbed Samba superbly but hit a similarly poor diasy-cutter before Arteta saw a direct free kick deflect off Ryan Nelsen in the wall and behind for a corner. From the resulting set piece, the ball eventually broke to Pienaar but Robinson got his body behind his powerful low shot and the rebound was hacked away.

Unbelievably, 20 minutes of the second half elapsed before the Blues created so much as a decent shooting opportunity, one which Saha wasted by lashing it high and wide with his weaker foot when Beckford was better placed in the centre. The Frenchman was replaced by Diniyar Bilyaletdinov shortly aftewards but there would be no goalscoring heroics from the Russian this time ? his only chance was blocked by another typically tenacious Blackburn defender in the dying minutes.

At the other end, Phil Jones and Nelsen, both defenders, had chances to increase the advantage but fired high and Nzonzi headed a terrific El-Hadji Diouf cross narrowly over.

With the sense of urgency finally kicking in during the closing stages, Everton pressed for an equaliser but continually came up short with aerial balls pinged into the box being repelled with ease and few moves employed designed to unlock the Rovers defence on the ground. A solitary chance of note opened up in the second minute of stoppage time when the ball fell to Jagielka but his well-struck shot was parried excellently by Robinson and Beckford's attempted overhead kick was cleared before it could threaten the goal.

And that was pretty much that. A depressingly disjointed and toothless display, the like of traveling Evertonians have witnessed up and down the country over the past few years. Unlike the last time these two sides met, when Everton were in their lucky black change strip, there was to be no moment of individual magic like that from Yakubu that created the winner for Cahill in stoppage time. Indeed, significantly, the Yak, like pre-season live-wire Seamus Coleman, wasn't even in the squad for this one, suggesting that his days at Goodison could be numbered.

The lack of finance available to strengthen the right flank and inject some pace into the side will hit home, though, if the players Moyes already has at his disposal don't step up and perform. Marouane Fellaini made a welcome return to the midfield but understandably lacks sharpness, Jagielka didn't demonstrate that his pairing with Distin is going to be a profitable one, Cahill was largely ineffective, and Arteta just didn't turn up for the first third of the match.

Of course, all is not lost because of one opening-day defeat ? just ask the title-winning side of 1985 or the Moyes team that lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their first match of 2004-05 and finished fourth ? but this will only prove to be a valuable reality check if lessons are learned from it quickly and if the now annual squad heart-to-heart that usually takes place around November happens now.

Next up is a quick chance to get a win under the belt with the visit of Wolves but there's not enough to convince that things have changed sufficiently to make Champions League qualification a reality this season.

Player Ratings:
Howard 5, Neville 6, Baines 7, Jagielka 6, Distin 6, Fellaini 6, Arteta 6, Osman 5, Pienaar 7, Cahill 6, Saha 6
Subs: Beckford 5, Bilyaletdinov 6, Rodwell 6

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