VIEW FROM THE BLUE

Blues Can't Turn Dominance Into Victory

By Lyndon Lloyd   ::  17/03/2012

Everton 1-1 Sunderland

Everton will have to go to the Stadium Light and win if they are to reach the semi-finals of the FA Cup after they and Sunderland battled out a feisty, full-blooded draw. Having fallen behind early on, the Blues recovered to level through Tim Cahill but although they dominated the remainder of the game, they couldn't find the guile to craft a winner.

Having rotated six players for the ultimately calamitous Merseyside derby on Tuesday, David Moyes reinstated the team that started against Tottenham last weekend and they found themselves in a good, old-fashioned knockout contest against a Black Cats side clearly instructed by Martin O'Neill to go looking for an early goal.

A couple of early corners for the vistitors and a wayward header by James McLean evidenced their early intent but it was Everton who came closer to scoring in the first 10 minutes when Seamus Coleman's driven cross fell a little behind Leon Osman who couldn't steer his header on target.

And the majority of Goodison was on its feets in the ninth minute when Royston Drenthe dribbled inside from the left flank before going down in the area under the challenge of Craig Gardner but referee Andre Marriner was non-plussed. Television replays would show that it was clear obstruction at the very least but Everton have never really been treated fairly under Mr Marriner and it wasn't about to start today.

Three minutes later, Sunderland took the lead when a quick free-kick wide on their right played short to Phil Bardsley caught Everton napping and the fullback drilled a low shot through a crowd of players and into the corner of Tim Howard's goal.

Everton responded, though, and after Marouane Fellaini had ballooned over from 30 yards and John Heitinga had wasted a direct freek kick that Nikica Jelavic would have been better off taking, they found the equaliser.

Leighton Baines whipped a tradmark cross in from the left, Jelavic rose to head goalwards and Cahill profited from being the right place at the right time to nod the ball on into the empty side of the goal to put the Blues back in the tie.

From then on, it was Everton's tie to win. Sunderland were typically competitive, tigerish in the tackle and resilient in defence but their threat as an attacking force was largely nullified by the impressive defensive duo of Heitinga and Sylvain Distin. Indeed, apart from having to pick the ball out his net, Howard had nothing to do.

Unfortunately, the home side visibly missed the intelligent probing of Pienaar and generally struggled to pick their way through a disciplined defence, leaving the aerial route as the dominant strategy. And it was from a 35th-minute corner that Cahill threatened to score his second of the half but Simon Mignolet made the first of a number of important saves to deny him, fisting the ball off the line and taking Heitinga with him.

With Pienaar in the stands, Drenthe was Everton's one unpredictable outlet and he came within a few inches of smashing home a spectacular free kick three minutes before half time. Unfortunately, his driven left-foot shot rattled off the top of the angle of crossbar and post.

The frenetic pace of the first period understandably dropped off in the second half but, as they retained the upper hand, the scales remained tipped in Everton's favour. Mignolet spilled Cahill's deflected shot six minutes after the restart as the Blues pressed and Coleman lashed wide after skinning two defenders on his way into the box, but clear-cut chances remained at a premium. That was until Fellaini's knockdown off a 57th-minute corner dropped to Cahill in front of goal but he could only side-foot tamely into the 'keeper's arms.

Though Everton's approach was fairly one-dimensional, you felt they always had a chance with Jelavic up front. In just his second start, the Croatian revealed many pleasing qualities that suggest he will be a fantastic signing, not least prodigious ability in the air which he demonstrated amply just past hour when he headed a Baines free kick inches over the bar.

As the game wore on, though, and the Blues visibly tired from the tempo they'd tried to maintain, they gradually ran out of ideas. Moyes replaced Coleman with Magaye Gueye, which allowed Drenthe to switch from the left to the right flank, but the Dutchman's frustration at the litany of fouls on him that went unpunished by the fouls probably pushed Moyes into substituting him for Denis Stracqualursi with five minutes to go. Drenthe's failure to track back after being dumped on the turf further upfield by an apparent foul earned him a rocket from his captain and likely tipped the manager's hand.

Without him, though, and Osman struggling to have any influence on the game, the last vestige of creativity was gone from the side, leaving aimless punts towards the Sunderland box as the primary tactic in the closing stages. It almost worked with one last chance with a couple of minutes of the regulation 90 left on the clock.

A corner from the left eventually fell to Osman on the far side of the penalty area and when his dinked cross found Heitinga's head, Mignolet had to dive at full stretch to paw his goalbound effort away to prevent it sneaking inside the post. Jelavic pounced on the rebound by the 'keeper made another smart save with his chest.

And that was more or less that, the Blues forced to contemplate going to the northeast where the pendulum swings towards Sunderland and their impressive home form under Martin O'Neill. Certainly an opportunity missed and with it came the uncomfortable realisation that for all Moyes's proclamations midweek that he has real depth in his squad, there was no one capable of taking this game by the scruff of its neck and creating the winner that would have won this tie. Certainly, there was no one you could really point to on the substitute's bench as being a game-changer.

Attentions now turn to the midweek clash with Arsenal back here at Goodison where another high-tempo, determined performance will be required to extend the Blues' tremendous recent record against the top five clubs on home turf. Beyond that, a replay at the Stadium of Light will loom in 10 days' time, offering further congestion to a packed March fixture calendar.

Player Ratings: Howard 6, Neville 6, Heitinga 8, Distin 8, Baines 7, Fellaini 7, Osman 6, Drenthe 7 (Stracqualursi -), Coleman 7 (Gueye 6), Cahill 7, Jelavic 8

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