All Goals – Everton 2-1 Aston Villa – 01-02… by beingoal1
I’d got this one down as a draw, a 2-2, not that it matters much.
My thinking was that we’d play a similar game as we did against the Baggies and Liverpool, where our energy and tenacity would get us something.
But while we huffed and puffed, we actually achieved nothing today.
When you consider Tim Howard actually only touched the ball once prior to our goal (and that was a backpass), you begin to realise how toothless we were.
So around the half hour mark when we were one up, I’d already got the headline in my head, which would have been “Never mind the quality, feel the result”.
The 30% first half possession statistic would probably have backed me up, but either way, I was thinking that I struggled to recall watching such a boring half of footy.
The point is, even with a 1-0 lead, I still thought we were poor value and incredibly boring to watch.
It was a decent goal mind, with some gritty play by Delph that started the move.
It wasn’t a foul by him, but the ball ended up with Benteke, who laid it onto Bacuna, who shot instead of playing square or cutting it back.
Whatever his thoughts were, he ‘megged Howard and it was in.
Perhaps Howard was feeling the cold a bit, due to his inactivity, but it looked a well worked goal.
deserved? Not really. But that’s what we do.
The commentator kept rattling on about how disciplined we were at the back, but I didn’t swallow it for one minute.
Everton looked a big threat every time they came down our right and a decent side playing on form would have murdered us in that area.
Fortunately, Everton didn’t seem to have it about them to really take advantage.
And then came the second half, where you could see that things were going to change.
They piled on the pressure and you just knew things weren’t going to stay as they were.
I was thinking that we needed to take it to Everton much more or they were going to score.
We’d taken the totally ineffective Holt off at half time and rightly so, in my opinion.
Why play two ball winners up front, when you’re playing three (or more correctly five) at the back?
In fairness, the setup was a lot more fluid than a three or five at the back, with the aim seeming to be to just outcrowd the opposition. Which was sort of working.
It was just that we seemed so narrow at times and you couldn’t see how we were going to create chances.
How we’re missing Gabby.
But I don’t profess to be a tactician or coach.
So someone had best explain to me why you take off your main central defender to replace him with a winger.
This one left me totally bamboozled.
I can understand it if the opposition don’t look a threat, but they were all over us and I’ll never understand that one as long as I live.
And El-Ahmedi has to be one of the worst to bring on as a sub, in my eyes, but what do I know?
I just think we could have got at least a point and maybe more today, if we’d played it correctly.
Everton weren’t the side they have been in the earlier part of the season and I just feel disappointed.
