VIEW FROM THE BLUE

Back on the Road to Nowhere

By Lyndon Lloyd   ::  04/12/2011

Everton's two-game "mini revival" was derailed at Goodison Park on the back of another depressing performance that starkly underlined the lack of creativity, invention and attacking threat in David Moyes's side. Prior to kick-off, Stoke City had just one win away from home all season, one win in their last six League games, one win over Everton in the Premier League and had failed to win a single game following a Europa League fixture. All they needed to do, however, was score a single goal to overcome a Blues team that failed to force a single save from either of two goalkeepers who played for the visitors today.

Everton peppered the Stoke area with aerial balls from set-piece and crossing situations all afternoon but, tellingly, they were prevented from threatening the goal with a single header. Part of that was down to the fact that Tony Pulis' big men were in all the right places at the right times, but they were aided in their task by yet more shockingly poor and inconsistent refereeing by Lee Mason and the apparent disappearance from the game of penalties being awarded for wrestling tactics inside the area.

Marouane Fellaini, Tim Cahill and full home debutant, Apostolos Vellios, spent much of the afternoon being man-handled in the box, the Belgian even motioning to the referee at one point to the grappling arm of defender wrapped around his waist but nothing was given as he headed wide while visibly being held back in full view of the officials.

Later, Vellios would be similarly compromised by Richard Shawcross' arm around his neck as the two battled for a corner from the opposite side, whereas Fellaini and Cahill were pulled up at virtually every opportunity by Mason for the merest of contact in the air.

Yet more sickening refereeing in a fixture at Goodison was a factor but it was not the reason why Everton failed to gain even a point from this game. The blank scoresheet on the Blues's side of the ledger was largely down to sheer attacking ineptitude and that depressing lack of creativity that pervades the midfield and forward line. Moyes's men just never looked like scoring in a match they again dominated almost from start to finish and this fourth home defeat of the campaign probably sucked what optimism had been built up by back-to-back wins right out of the stadium.

And yet ? not for the first time this season, of course ? things had started so brightly. After the moving tributes to Gary Speed, including his father and many of his former teammates joining the two teams on the field to lead a minute's applause to honour the boyhood Blue, Everton began the game in enterprising mood with some really nice football being played at times.

Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, starting again in place of the injured Royston Drenthe on the left flank, had what, at the time, felt like would be the first chance of many in the 10th minute when Seamus Coleman's cross from the right glanced off Shawcross' head. But the Russian snatched at a left-foot volley and it flew across the six-yard line rather than bother Thomas Sorensen.

Uppermost in Moyes's mind before the game must have been Stoke's physical and aerial threat so he must have been spitting mad just four minutes later when the visitors scored with their first set-piece. A dreadful touch by Leighton Baines near his own area gifted the ball to Ryan Shotton, forcing John Heitinga to head his cross behind. When the resulting corner was headed out only as far as Dean Whitehead just outside the penalty area, he returned the ball with interest towards the Everton goal where Robert Huth turned it past Tim Howard and into the roof of the net.

1-0 down but with time on their side, the Blues didn't seem to panic and they had a chance within a couple of minutes when Leon Osman was hauled down 20 yards from the Stoke goal, but Baines' direct free kick deflected off the wall and behind for a corner.

More pleasing football followed, though, with Osman twice releasing Bilyaletdinov towards the byline with nicely-weighted passes in the space of a couple of minutes but the Russian scuffed his first crossing attempt and when he stood his second up towards the back post, a foul was called against Cahill.

The home side's momentum stalled around the half-hour mark, however, and they just seemed to stop doing what hadn't up to that point worked but appeared to be the best route to breaking Stoke down via the right bounce or a bit of fortune to come the Blues' way. In oher words, get the ball down the left for Baines or Bilyaletdinov to keep slinging crosses in.

Though Everton applied some pressure going into the half-time break and forced a handful more corners, Stoke were looking more and more adept at snuffing out the Blues' threat from set-pieces, either legally through smart positional play and sheer height advantage or, in the absence of any refereeing oversight, just plain thuggishly.

If the first half had been bad overall from the Blues' perspective, the second was much worse, with the players showing very few signs that they knew how they might break through a determined opposition defence.

At the heart of it, of course, is the fact that this Everton side is now utterly incapable of opening a defence up by playing through it on the ground. Time after time, the lack of movement up front presents an attacking Blue shirt with a wall of players strung along the 18-yard line and any attempt to thread a passing move through the eye of the needle gets closed out. Or there are so few players moving off the ball into space in midfield that the man with the ball has no choice but to keep charging forward into a cul-de-sac because he lacks the ball skills to beat players on his own.

That left the flanks and the hopeful Jagielka or Heitinga ball forward. The Coleman-Hibbert combination down the right was impotent as an attacking weapon, the service down the left dried up ? Bilyaletdiov, of course, disappeared from the game ? and anything down the middle was just being soaked up by a defence that could have continued winning headers all day long.

Bily was predictably withdrawn after 63 minutes and Jack Rodwell thrown on to hopefully add a bit more drive to central midfield. Osman moved out to the left and while he didn't do badly in a role in which he often struggles, in truth it should have been Magaye Gueye who came on in a like-for-like swap because the team was crying out for something different.

After a lengthy stoppage for Sorensen, who took a blow to the head when Cahill tried to capitalise on hesitation in the Stoke defence and nip the ball off the gloves of the 'keeper, Denis Stracqualursi replaced Vellios who, just as had the been the case at Fulham in his first starting role, had been largely anonymous trying to lead the line. Save for a nice flick-on with his first touch, the big Argentine offered nothing more than had the Greek because of the chronic lack of service the strikers were receiving.

If the Blues were going to get anything from this game, it would have happened in a brief flurry around the 84th minute. Rodwell saw a goalbound shot ? Everton's only effort on target all afternoon ? blocked by a defender before it could even reach replacement 'keeper Asimir Begovic and, a minute later, Baines' cross from a short corner flew agonisingly across the face of the Stoke goal with Heitinga inches away from getting the crucial touch.

Seven minutes of stoppage time produced nothing of note and the Everton fans departed the ground in dejected mood having received a reality check for any belief that the corner had been turned with the wins over Wolves and Bolton.

It's the mess that Bill built, really, and the stagnation in approach that Davey just can't seem to resolve ?a relatively exciting team that qualified for Europe has been stripped of its best players and the manager's dogged refusal to try anything new means that Everton are a predictable and stale outfit that is easy to strangle into one-dimensional tactics.

Some will point the finger at the likes of Vellios and Cahill and while it's true that the former lacks the experience to lead a 4-5-1 formation and the latter just looks burned out from years and years of gruelling commitment to club and country, the truth is that neither got a sniff of goal this afternoon. Neither, indeed, would the departed Yakubu who is on his usual "new club hot streak" and scored four goals for struggling Blackburn yesterday. It's not so much that the strikers are missing opportunities, it's that they're just not getting the chances in the first place; the problems lie deep and may take a real re-think on Moyes's part to resolve.

One thing's for sure, what he's doing now is not working.

Player Ratings: Howard 6, Hibbert 6 (Gueye 6), Jagielka 7, Heitinga 6, Baines 6, Fellaini 7*, Osman 6, Coleman 5, Bilyaletdinov 6 (Rodwell 6), Cahill 6, Vellios 5 (Stracqualursi 5)

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