Match Preview

Last weekend there were rumours that Arsenal would be shorn of Pires, Ljunberg, Viera, Henry, Cole, Keown, Adams, Seaman, Dixon, Lauren, Kanu, Bergkamp and our own ex-Jeffers.... even then I was still worried!!

As it is, Viera is now rated likely to play, Henry's disciplinary hearing has still not been given a date and he will definitely play, and even Franny hopes to be on the bench.  No Pires or Bergkamp though.

When you see the list of players that they have missing and then see the quality of the players that they will still put on the pitch, you realise just how poor our 1st team squad is.  They have no Kanu or Bergkamp so they play Henry and Wiltord - the World Champions' strike force.  We lost Campbell and Ferguson and played a fullback upfront!

But enough!  What straws can we grasp at?

Well, we beat them 2-0 last season.  Southampton drew 1-1 with them last Saturday.  They've scored in their last 27 league games so they must draw a blank eventually!!

Our team?  Not got a clue!  I guess the back four will be Weir, Stubbs, Clarke at fullback and Unsworth on the other flank.  Midfield is a bit more difficult.  Is Gravesen fit?  If so, why on earth isn't he playing??  We are in trouble and he's our best player.  If Smith hangs for anything he may hang for that.

Linderoth?  The lad can only be half-fit.  Pembridge? He can't even be half-fit!  Likely line-up I would think would be Naysmith left-mid; Linderoth and Pembridge/Gazza in the middle (Gemmill is suspended) and Blomqvist on the right.

Upfront the immobile Donkeys � oh sorry � the Bruise Brothers (yeah right!) Ferguson and Campbell will probably start with hopefully Radzinski making the bench and coming on.  Our front line is woefully short of pace and movement; whilst Rads' scoring record hasn't been great, he has shown a threat to defences.

INTERJECTION...   GINOLA !!!!!

I do not know whether to laugh or cry!   I think I'll laugh and then I'll remember the fact that, despite his penchant for fancy hairstyling adverts, the guy has one of the best deliveries of crosses in Europe � and yes I do mean that.  He's overweight and lacking match fitness BUT he has class and we don't!

If, 6 months ago, I had said we would have Blomqvist on one wing and Ginola on the other, we would never have believed it but personally I think it can work.  Suddenly, purchasing Carsley is not such a shocker.  Two tough-tackling, terrier, workman like central midfielders are not so bad when you place Jesper and Daveed wide of them. 

At Derby Carsley looked a quality player and Kendall was very keen just before he got the boot but, at Blackburn and then Coventry last season, he seemed out of his depth and he is hardly the player to bring flowing football back to the club.  We now have enough average hard working players in the middle of the park, Linderoth we are told is a defensive midfielder, but know we where the ideas are going to come from.  

Suddenly, the creativity � even if for only 60 minutes in a match � has arrived.  Ginola is lazy, Ginola is overweight, Ginola was player of the year 2 years ago and possess more ability in each of his feet than any other player at Goodison (excepting Gazza of course).

Suddenly we could look at a midfield of: Ginola, Linderoth, Gazza,
Blomqvist with Carsley and Pembridge on the bench (oh and Unsworth as well as Naysmith drops back).

Ginola has hardly played this season and Carsley has been plying his trade in the 1st division... BUT this is an improvement.  Will Gravesen apologise and say what needs to be said?  If so then we have a midfield that, if Viera is missing, may hold its own.

Suddenly I am, irrationally, more optimistic.   Signings lift clubs.  Ginola has a "je ne sais quoi" about him and boy can he cross.  If Dunc can't do something with his crosses then he really really is finished.

Come on lads, let's get irrational; lets grab at straws.  Goodison roar.  Ginola shine; Dunc strut.  Believe me, the game is there to be won.  If Viera doesn't show, we can win; it if he does... well, damn it, we still can.

I love the Blues.  I'll be at Goodison, lets roar them home !

BlueForEver (even if it does hurt..)

That's it: we're down

Well, that's it then... we're down. And it doesn't matter what we do now. 

Let�s get the signings out the way: Carsley, I thought, had a good steady game, and has nothing to be ashamed of.  He was there to hold the midfield and get stuck in, and in doing so he was more than a match for the fist-shaking Dane (who must surely be on his way to Hamburg by the end of the week for a nice nifty profit to please the bank temporarily).

Ginola, my friends, was pure class.  Not everything he did came off, and you may think that he tired towards the end of the second half.  But he still looked head and shoulders above any other Everton player on show today in terms of ability and vision.  There were times when his flicks completely wrong �footed the Arsenal defence and if we�d had anybody with a bit of pace we�d have been into the open spaces like barracuda.  I�m just waiting for the first f@ckwad to suggest that Ginola�s a �lazy cunt� for confirmation that we do indeed have �the most knowledgeable supporters in the game� (My arse!).

And therein lies the problem; you have soooooper Kev, up front, holding the play (and being held; more of which later) and no fecker there to feed off him.  We have no pace anywhere in the side, other than (perhaps) Naysmith out from the left-back position.  The glaring obvious symptom of this is the tendency to defend in depth because you�re too scared that a pacy team is going to get around the back of you (as Arsenal did in the last 20 mins).

Until this is addressed, we�re fecked; and it�s going to take more than a fit Radzinski to do anything about it.

Watch Arsenal: they pressure and snap at the opponents from every position on the pitch, because they know that if they do lose out then there�s plenty of pace elsewhere on the field to compensate.  They usually don�t defend any deeper than a third of the way up the pitch because they don�t have to.  But not us; oh no, cautious Walter won�t have any of that; when was the last time you saw us defend goal kicks from up by the halfway line?

The thing that really got me today though, and the thing that really makes me think that we�re destined for the drop, is the unreal conspiracy of events in that game (and I�m not just talking about Wiltord�s goal, possibly the jammiest goal I�ve seen in an Everton v Arsenal game since Pat Rice floated in a 50-yard free kick past Nev at Highbury in about �81). 

A special mention here to the �referee�, Jeff Winter.  As if the unpunished shirt pulling on Campbell by Stepanovs wasn�t bad enough, the rugby tackle on Wier by the same player would surely have resulted in a penalty from any referee of a decent standard� assuming, that is, the cunt wasn�t 30 yards away from the play�

The highlight of his �performance�, though, was the treatment of Thierry Henry�s tackle on Wier in the 89th minute.  OK, it�s all well past us by then� which makes the intent in a two footed tackle launched from the other side of the pitch even more glaringly obvious.  He pulled up Henry, and by any interpretation of �the laws of the game�, which these cunts keep spouting at us whenever then seek to excuse their f@ck-ups, he had to go�  But no, says Winter, I�ll just book him instead.  

Add to this Walter�s �tactical acumen� (Clarke�s getting made a show of by Henry et al, and Campbell badly needs some support up front so the obvious switch is to bring Joe-Max on� in the 86th minute????) and the way that every �50-50� ball broke to them, and you have the recipe for a side that is staring into the abyss.

It wouldn�t matter now if somebody gave us �200M to spend, and we bought Figo, Kluivert, Rivaldo and any other player that you could name� we�re in the Nationwide next year.  Sure, somebody along the way will get malleted 5-0 by us in a false dawn (probably West Ham in three weeks), but everyone else is gonna either completely bladder us or grind out a flukey win, a bit like today.

Oh well� I hear Gillingham�s very nice in autumn� can David Moyes come out to play please?  Think I'm just gonna get pissed up for the rest of the season and forget about it!

(Incidentally, I found out today that I'm not the only Evertonian in Beckenham, there's at least three more... plus the pub was full of ManUre and Totternham fans who cheered Ginola's every move!)

Added spice not enough

After the disheartening and damaging defeat against Ipswich, and bearing in mind our current run of form (lets be honest - it's relegation form), it was important to get things going again.  Coming up against Arsenal wasn't exactly what we wanted and, even though they were shorn of a number of players, they were still able to put out a star studded team.

Added spice was given to the match by our recent flurry of transfer activity, in particular the arrival of Ginlola.

Team

I was intrigued before the match as to how, exactly we were going to line up.  As it was, decisions were largely made for Walter by the absence of Dunc, the suspension of Gemmill and the continued absence of Alexandersson and Radzinski.  I make it eight players who would probably have been in the squad being missing.

After a couple of mediocre performances, Gascoigne was the only person dropped.  Ginola was asked to partner Campbell up front, Blomqvist had to fill in on the right, and we had a brand new central midfield pairing of Linderoth and Carsley.

First half

We undoubtedly had the better of the first half.  Ginola was playing like a man with a point to prove.  Within the first couple of minutes, he had produced a good save from Wright.  This was followed by a free kick which grazed the outside of a post with the 'keeper beaten, and finally a wasting of our best chance of the game when he had a clear sight of goal but sidefooted wide.

During this first 45 minutes everyone showed a little bit.  Carsley got forward to good effect on a couple of occasions (it was he who had laid on Ginola's missed chance), and was also getting stuck in.  Linderoth showed himself to be a neat and tidy player, who could invariably find a blue shirt.  It wasn't brilliant but it offered encouragement.

Second half

I suppose an Arsenal reaction was only to be expected.  All their serious title rivals had won over the weekend � it was imperative that they did so as well.  They noticeably upped their tempo in the second half and we began to look distinctly second best.  Ginola faded from the game, Carsley and Linderoth went very quiet in midfield.

Our defending, even if a little desperate at times, kept them at arms length, and just when I began to think that we may have ridden out the storm, they pounced.  The warning signs of a goal had been there but, when it did arrive, it was cruel in the extreme.  Viera chipped a ball in towards Wiltord.  Wiltord was being closely shepherded but as it dropped over his shoulder he swung his leg at it and the ball looped off his shin, over Simonsen and into the net.  From my distant vantage point it was one of those horrible, almost slow motion affairs.  The ball looped up, seemingly going nowhere but ending up nestling in the goal.

After the goal we did drag ourselves back into the game.  We never really looked convincing but at least we stemmed the Arsenal tide.  Gascoigne came on for Unsworth with Naysmith reverting to left back, Blomqvist switching over to the left and Gascoigne going to the right.  A bit later, Blomqvist was withdrawn for the returning Pembridge.  The final throw was Moore coming for Clarke as we went to a back three.  It was all to no avail; we did try but barely created a chance worthy of the name.

Summary

The bottom three seems to get ever closer and the edginess will only increase from here on in.  There were positives to be taken from the game.  All three debutants made a contribution, Pembridge made a welcome return, and it is to be hoped that Radzinski can come in to profit from some of the quality we have on the pitch now.

I personally think that all of the signings are excellent; they all did alright yesterday and they should all improve with familiarity and additional match fitness.  If we can get Radzinski out there and Alexandersson back to provide balance down the right and allow Blomqvist to revert to the left, then there is distinct promise there, and we do still have plenty of time left to sort things out.

Ratings

• Simonsen 7  One good save but not his busiest game.  Not sure whether he has any blame for the goal, he did seem a bit casual when running back for it, but it was a bit of a freak.
• Clarke 6  A huge step on the learning curve as he spent much of the game marking Henry.  Did OK for the most part but his distribution must improve � gave possession away cheaply on far too many occasions.
• Weir 7  As composed and as reliable as ever.
• Stubbs 7  As composed and as reliable as ever.
• Unsworth 7 Did his usual competent defensive job.
• Blomqvist 6  Had a number of good moments but can't help feeling he'd be better down the left.
• Carsley 6  Did more in the opposition half than I expected.  Did pretty well first half but disappeared a bit in the second.
• Linderoth 6  A tidy little player.  Got good, quick feet.  Promising.
• Naysmith 6  Don't take this the wrong way but I'll be glad when someone like Ginola or Blomqvist can take over his left wing duties.  He doesn't do anything wrong � he just doesn't pose a real, proper attacking threat.  After all he's really a left back.
• Campbell 6  Not happening for him at the moment, but undeserving of some of the stick he is getting.
• Ginola 7  Made a big difference especially when he was fit enough to make a real contribution.  He was trying to do too much at times � taking the ball off teammates, taking free kicks he probably should have left to Stubbs.  But at least that showed his eagerness to impress.
• Gascoigne 6  Made a few little runs but didn't have too great an impact.
• Pembridge 6  Got in a few thumping tackles.  Remains my first choice for centre midfield.
• Moore -  He may not have even touched the ball.

Team 6  Definitely something to build on.  There was commitment there, there was organisation. We deserved something from the game.

Man of the match  Ginola deserves consideration but in the end it goes to old dependable � Davey Weir.