Chelsea FA Cup Match Report

Six thousand Evertonians descended on the capital in a showing of both loyalty and desperation on Saturday lunchtime and those who did so, will remember it for a long time, as cup ties go it had it all.
The opening exchanges saw the hosts create and handful of decent chances to take the lead, but came up against a forthright and resolute defence, particularly goal keeper Tim Howard, who went some way to banishing the demons which (probably dont) haunt him from the final in 2009.

In the first half Chelsea poked and probed away at the toffees, but to a man they stood up and did the jobs they were given, their attitude from start to finish was exemplary an absolute galaxy away from the performances most of the same players put in less than a week before at Bolton. The main flash point of the first half was the 'penalty' that never was. Ramires skipped into the box as half time loomed and found himself seemingly colliding with the onrushing American, it looked nailed on. But credit were it is due, Phil Dowd who is usually one of the better refs in the league and wasn't having his finest afternoon, got it absolutely spot on.



To have gone in at that point 1-0 down and given Chelsea the opportunity of changing things round suit them could have been disastrous, as it was Dowd did what he is paid to do, booked the Brazilian and waved away a whole manner of moaning twats as they bayed for the Americans blood. Phew...

Second half underway Chelsea continued to create marginally more than Everton, but just seemed to lack the swagger which they are clearly capable of producing. The returning Jagielka in defence looked back to his reliable best, winning headers and tackles all over the place and giving it simply to Arteta on a number of occasions in order not to surrender possession so easily. Surrender it they did though and with about ten minutes remaining a quiet but menacing Lampard should have won it with a chip....phew! It left you with a rising feeling in your blue gut that if we'd survived up to this point against a team that hadn't lost in the cup for something like 3 years, this may just be our day.

Fellaini, whether he was trying to impress prospective new employers or not, enjoyed another fantastic afternoon for Everton, winning the ball and generally giving us the confidence and presence that is needed in order to overcome good teams in such circumstances. So who better for a last minute tap in to fall to after good work from Baines and Arteta from a corner? Nobody, thats who.... ''RRAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHKKKK......oh fuck off'' Ecstatic cartwheels and backflips in the away end were immediately cancelled as the linesman raised his flag. Replays show he was probably right too.

Extra time awaited and the inevitability of it all seemed to creep up on us. As almost as soon as we had restarted the game, Anelka (more of him later) absolutely skinned to Everton players down the right, whipped the ball in and then Lampard doing his usual thing managed to get on the end of what looked like a spawny chest down from Drogba and lash the ball into the bottom corner past the despairing Howard. Season over in one mundane, standard, Lampard swish of his right peg.



As gut wrenchingly arl arse as it felt on the team and the supporters who had to coin a phrase ''been fucking marlvellous'' all day up to this point. In the main it seemed to steel their purpose and their willingness to connect to each other and all pull in the same direction for one outcome. They were to coin another phrase ''Not going to be moved''.

Moyes in a real moment proactivity had brought Anichebe and Bilyaletdinov on for the tireless Beckford and Leon Osman. It worked too, especially in the Nigerians case, he came on and made enough of a nuisance of himself in order for Chelsea to start making silly fouls.

Leighton Baines has been a picture of consistency and technique so far this season, constantly offering for the ball and willing to take responsibility in moments of games which belie his seemingly uninfluential position of left back. Even losing Pienaar in January who he had a near telepathic understanding with for 3 years has not diminished the lads focus one iota. And focus he did, Jagielka pushing forward now in a desperate attempt for an equaliser won a free kick on the edge of the box. Baines assumed control and waved away a loitering Basque lad. Phew!



Commence Cartwheels. It was a free kick of sheer simplicity and beauty. To do what he did, at the time he did, knowing full well what it meant to a lot of people takes character, balls and ability. He has it in spades. Its as if he realises that missing out on the world cup last year leaves him with one final chance to do it and he wont rest until he has got to that level, and as much as i couldn't give a flying shite about England, id love to see him get there, there isn't a better left back in the league just now. Thanks Leighton.

So if you hadn't walked out up to this point, chewed down to your knuckle on both your hands and/or had to go the bogs to involuntarily change your underpants, it was all going down to spot kicks.

In a bizarre twist of fate, Baines missed his. Chelsea went on to score their next two with Jagielka scoring for us. Not.Looking.Good. Anelka, so laid back he may as well of lambada'd up to the ball, swaggered up to take his and Howard palmed it away. Hold it.... Arteta smashed his in..... As did Essien. .... Johnny Heitinga walked up and smashed his in too......Hold itttt, not only that, but as he was walking back to his team mates he nudged the waspish Cole in the shoulder as he nervously walked up to take his. Psyched out and duly ballooned - Cole misses. Leaving it all down to Captain Phil Neville. Hold ittttttt...Never in doubt. Crowd surfing, windmilling, back flips and cartwheels haven't felt that easy since 2009.



The celebrating supporters, players, management and board members can all now look forward to a last 16 tie against Reading at home, get past that and they've got either Villa or City in the quarter finals and we now know very well where you go if we get past them. If's, buts' and maybe's....

Up the fucking Blues. You made us proud on Saturday.

Chelsea FA Cup 4th Round Preview

Chelsea have been fucking weird this season. At the start of this term they looked like some sort of runaway wrought-iron, soviet freight train, thundering past anybody standing in front of them through the sheer weight of experience and ability available to their manager. Then Roman Abramovich nonchalantly decided to get involved. He inexplicably sacked the crabbish cockney glue that was Ray Wilkins, which according to some was holding together the galaxy of primed footballing athletes the oligarch has been collecting since he bought Chelsea. Its basically all turned to stuttering, festering Rat shite ever since, in relative terms of course.



I reckon he may have cherry picked Carlo Ancelotti based upon his impressive mutual eyebrow prowess. Ancelotti's one raised, comedy bond villain effort befits a man who seems indefatigably not entirely sure whether or not he's just touched cloth or not. Whereas his employers perma raised how-now-one-brow promotes the mood of a man who's so mind bendingly filthy rich, that he has not got one stinking little thing to furrow about. Not a worry line in sight, the lucky bum fluffed chinned get.



The match itself and the chance to avenge 2009 comes off the back of a terrible away showing at The Reebok, and by 'terrible away showing' I mean 'utterly fucking clueless'. Moyes looked a thoroughly beaten man sat there on the sidelines at times, certainly one who knew unequivocally whether or not he'd shat his strides so to speak. ''Pass me a roll of quilted AloeVera please Steve...they've done it to me again''. From Cahill's missed header, to Beckford both surprisingly and vitriolically getting on Fellaini's case for missing a pass, it truly was a day to forget.

Maybe if we could welcome back Louis Saha this weekend, you'd be hard pushed not to give us a fighters chance in the capital, he does love playing against these after all, the enormous fart that he is. Both teams seasons, again relatively speaking, have been catalogued with inconsistency. Everton's leaving us in a shit or bust situation for Saturday and Chelsea's resulting in them realistically being out of the title race (still in the Champions League like), woe are fucking them.

This all being the case and as much as a cliche as it is, it leaves you thinking that with 6000 expectant Evertonian's making their way down to Stamford Bridge (which in itself is both staggering given how awful we've been at times this season and also testament to just how important this game is to us) anything really is possible in the FA Cup.



Anyway Everton, you owe us this weekend. ''We shall not be moved...''

Bolton Match Report

Just when you thought this season had kicked you in the balls for the last time, Bolton managed to not only laugh in our puffy reddened faces, but pull our collective keks down, pinch our nipples, give us a wedgie and then get that cunt Robinson and his mate Davies to run round the back of us, crouch down and launch us over.

David Moyes said it was ''about the worst he's seen in 9 years in charge''. And by christ theres been some contenders for that particular prize. In an absolutely rain sodden Reebok a very tidy, motivated, albeit ordinary Bolton side managed to run out easy 2-0 winners against a hapless Everton team. Disinterested all 11 of them.



Gary Cahill evaded his marker for his headed opener which managed to send Howard the wrong way after a slight deflection off Heitinga's leg. The free kick itself came after a typically characteristic lunge from Robinson on Fellaini, he's worse than a yard dog the Bolton left back, he's a shitty arsed Rottweiler with doggie aids and twatcunt rabies cursing through his devilish veins. Woof! Woof! All that personal dislike aside, Everton had a brilliant opportunity to level things when Baines swung in a peach of a ball from the left towards the returning Tim Cahiill, it was just gagging for a trademark bullet diving header right into a willing net, he chose to slice it wide with his foot instead, christ knows why like.



After that, Everton looked like they were playing some sort of half arsed pre season game and were the happier to see half time break not further behind. Good opportunity to get our heads together, work out what the problem was, change things here or there and set about turning the game our way. Or so you'd think. Every single player (bar possibly Howard and Distin) who had stunk the gaff out in the first half, somehow managed to come out and smell even worse for the second. Never mind ice baths for recovery, Steve Round must've had them doing naked star jumps in shite baths at half time, such was the pong emanating from some of Moyes most experienced and highest paid professionals.

There's an insatiable thirst for one or more scapegoats when things really turn to rat shit with us and Anichebe, who certainly didn't have his best game, fitted that mould nicely once again as a vociferous portion of the away crowd cleared their throats and let rip as Moyes subbed him. Hang your heads bellends, not only is it a cretinous thing to spend your time doing whilst supporting your team, but in its entirity it just isnt Everton. All that was left to cap one truly awful day at the office, was for Boltons bright young thing, Daniel Sturridge, a loan signing, an energetic centre forward, to double their lead.



Where does this leave us? Looking at the table and hearing Moyes choice post game comments about thinking we've been in a relegation battle since the third week of the season, and then looking at the games we have remaining, you'd like to say we have more than enough about us to win the four games needed(?) to guarantee our top flight status for another year. Yes i did just write that.

Those points would probably come from home games against Sunderland, Birmingham, Fulham and Blackburn. But reading those fixtures back, none of them inspire you with supreme confidence do they? Interspersed with one or two winnable away games at Wigan, West Brom and Wolves it looks like we'll have just enough to drag ourselves away from it eventually, but its not gonna be cosy.



Would changing the managerial position really remedy what is going wrong at Everton at the moment? How about swapping a young disliked centre forward for another one or two we've loaned out to a championship team in a moment of haste/necessity? 

Now is not the time fo kneejerking, the problems that are at the root cause of this are going to a long time to sort themselves out. The only one thing for certain about the whole situation is how fucking depressing it is and the one thing for certain we can do as supporters right now is to get behind the team regardless.

On to London.

Bolton Wanderers Preview

Ever since the toothy, be-shorted, competitive Dad like Owen Coyle took over at The Trotters, the town of Bolton had not received such a surge of defelected admiration since the early noughties, when the likes of Peter Kay, Dave Spikey(Chorley), Patrick McGuiness and Vernon Kay all carved out their new style of 'northern', rode the crest of a woolyback wave and Uncle Knobead'ed right into the centre of our television screens. GARLIC FUCKING BREAD?




The truth is, he's got them playing a completely different brand of togger alltogether, gone are the days of Allardyce, Little Sam(snort! snort!) and most recently Megson, were you had 11 grocks kicking seven shades of shite out of you for 90 minutes...Davies and Robinson aside like...welcome to the new age of twittering, twinkled toed Stuart Holden and Matty Taylor tikky takkying it all over t'Reebok.



Sitting 3 points behind Bolton with a game in hand, sneak a win in this one then and hope one or two others go in our favour then the blues could well see themselves jump a few places into the top half of the table for the first time in what seems like an eon. Easier said than done. Bolton were pretty unlucky to go down to a late, late goal at Spurs last week and also do well to hold their own with most teams these days due to their switch in mentality under Coyle, they frustrated the shite out of us at Goodison earlier in the season thats for sure.

After the last weeks revelations that Nik Leeson is getting his career back on track by getting a job in Evertons accounting department, the news coming out of Finch Farm continues in somewhat of a downward spiral, as we hear Jack Rodwell and (the free scoring!) Louis Saha are both ruled out with injuries for a couple of weeks, lets face it your not arsed so much about Sunday its the impact it could have at Stamford bridge next week.
 
This really is the story of the frenchmans career. Alex Ferguson raised a few eyebrows for letting him go for next to nothing to us, what Ferguson has gone on record as saying is that it was Saha's inability to put his body on the line and play through the pain barrier when he needed him most, this was ultimately what forced the scots hand. It really is beyond boring now to go on about how talented he is, then in the next breath say ''only on his terms though, when he wants to and that....'', his timing for getting an injury is absolutely uncanny, frustrating isnt the word. I wonder if it irks him a bit that even after scoring 4, he's obviously still not heralded by Evertonians for the talent and ability he clearly posesses? You know, gallic sulkyness and all that.
Probably not like, he just calculates next weeks wages against how many bottles of 'Autumn Sunrise' hair dye he can get and asks private Cheshire physio Claire to continue working his groin whilst listening to Tinie Tempah on his oversized earphones, and who can blame him.

All that aside, Bolton are vulnerable losing 5 in their last 7 and Everton are more than capable of going there with Cahill possibly stepping in and getting a result. Also, theres a big gangly lad in the middle for us, who is playing out of his skin at the moment and who has a bit of a habit of notching against these.



'Go Get An Away Win Lads, We Aint Had One Since December'

Blackpool Match Report

''Theres no way we'll be last on Match of the Day tonight'' was a common theme when leaving the ground on Saturday evening. Such is life though, as the day we splurge goals all over Walton, the league transforms into a kids 6 a side league. I mean, 5 fucking 3 for crying out loud and what a bloody game it was, with the Seasiders naivety in defence mixed together with their attacking full on, gay abandon attacking mentality, more than being responsible for it. Great stuff.

With the returning Tim Cahill rested and left on the bench the first half took a bit of time to get going, the likes of Saha, Bilyaletdinov and Fellaini  all enjoying a lot of the ball and making it difficult for Blackpool to get out their own half most the time, when they do come at you though, they are entirely fearless. With about 20 minutes gone, Everton went ahead in impressive fashion, Bilyaletdinov, getting a good run of games now, ran purposefully at a couple of Blackpool players in the corner of the bullens rd/park end, ok, ok, it could be said these fellas were not world class defenders, but you can only beat whats put in front of you, and beat him they did, pinpoint ball into an in the mood Saha, 1-0.



A large following from the Lancashire coastal town came to Merseyside, were in full voice and impressively managed to refrain from the increasingly tiresome ''sign on'' repertoire of anti scouse bile from 90% of away fans coming to the old lady these days. One thing you absolutely cannot do against Blackpool is take them lightly and in true Everton comedic fashion, some blues crazily giving Charlie Adam an all manner of bizarre abuse in the corner of Glawdys street as he lined up a corner, probably for not signing for Liverpool in the transfer window or summink?...anyway he fizzed one in low and as the baying Glawddy ninjas were all going ''AAHHHH'' for spooning it, Baptiste somehow managed to get a touch on it, say thanks to his mate Charlie Adam, both of them laugh at a few bile spitting lids and subsequently level things. Beacon cheeks..



With Saha in particular looking as in the mood as he ever has done in his Everton career, he managed to get on the end of and slot a classic Seamus Coleman tenacious, barging run and cut back, to what everybody thought was Everton getting themselves in front again, apart from Mr Friend(no, me neither) that is, who decided to call the game back for the foul on Coleman, oh and not give their player a card for the shirt pulling. Anyway he held his hands up for it at half time and was good enough to apologise to Moyes. ''FWWWIIEEEEEENNND''.

The second half was categorically bonkers. Everton were knocking the ball about with impunity on one of the wettest 90 minutes seen at Goodison ages, getting themselves ahead early on through a brilliant Baines cross to Saha, textbook. With Fellaini again looking embarrassingly brilliant every time he touched the ball, continually swatting Mosquito like Blackpool players away from him, a bit like a lazy, overweight, feckless, Mexican*.

Weirdly though, with us wasting the odd free kick, which Arteta should be banned from forthwith, his success ratio must be getting similar to Alan Stubbs now. Blackpool broke away from the fumbling Distain in their own half, with Blackpools debutant's Puncheon and Beattie combining well with DeeJay Campbell to somehow level things. Eh, Wossallthissthen? Literally two minutes later, Everton were ominously staring down the barrel of another disappointing home defeat, as a jubilant Charlie Adam nodded in from close range, after our hardman(stop laughing) Johnny 'H BOMB' Heitinga shat out of a fifty fifty ball with James 'Great set of Tagues' Beattie. Shite, shit and sugar.



As much of a ballache it is to let 3 goals in at home to Blackpool, you never for one minute thought there wouldn't be more goals in this game. And there was, 3 of the friggers as it happens. Moyes probably panicking at this stage, changing things round a bit and threw on Cahill and Beckford for Rodwell and Bily. It really did the trick too. Everton forced the issue through good possession football and even though they looked vulnerable to the counter attack(who would against these?) never really looked back from there.

Credit where its due, the true enigma that is Louis Saha completed his hat rick and nodded the blues level after more good work from Baines, when the lad fancies it, some of the best defenders in the world cant cope with his ability and technique, that's just it though, its never ever anything other than his terms and yes this was Blackpool but even so, he was brilliant and never stopped all afternoon.



With Saha more than occupying the physical approach employed by Blackpools defenders all afternoon, Baines lofted an inviting ball over the top for Beckford to get on the end of, and did he. After coming on he fluffed a couple of basic passes and touches, to the usual chagrin of some sections of the crowd. You just know with this lad though, as frustrating as he can be and untidy as he can look, he keeps going and is  a born goal scorer and will always get you one. Bedlam understandably ensued as Everton again took control in this thriller and a drenched goodison park looked on to a real feast of a football match.

All was left was for Saha to be released exquisitely be Fellaini and bag his fourth and to lap up the adoration from supporters that love him and frustrate them in equal measure. How many Everton players do you know who've scored four in a top flight league game? I don't care how old you are, ''not many'' is probably most Evertonians answer.

Bolton up next. Come on toffeemen, confidence booster before we...*ahem*....knock Chelsea out the FA Cup.

* I wasn't being racist up there, oh no, i was satirically pointing the finger at fatties who drive Mondeos.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/05/top-gear-offensive-steve-coogan

Blackpool Preview

January was bit shite wasn't it? Bar a deceivingly motivated performance against Spurs, it just perpetuated the same tired, disinterested mood that had preceded most previous games this season, so much for New Year, new leaves and all that caper.

'Plucky Blackpool' (still a few places above us after losing something stupid like 7 in 8) arrive at Goodison this weekend, with both Charlie Adam and Ian Holloway pretty much dominating everything that's ever mentioned about them. To be fair to the scot, he's been playing fucking brilliantly all this and last season, and the country bumpkin respectively, no matter what some people will have you believe, he is a ''breath of fresh air'' or at least something a little bit different. Honestly, who couldn't enjoy his diatribes towards Villa and the redshite over their (not that)derisory Adam bids? Even if he does have a conflict of interests financially, its nice to see managers not conceding to players demands in order that they get their ''dream move'', fuck em.



Sticking with the January theme, you get the feeling that some of Kenwrights most staunch advocates are beginning to walk away from him now. After what represented possibly THE most depressing January transfer window ever, and lets face it we've had a few. A moody arsed manager, a crowd favourite pissing off, no signings - not even a baldy little loan here or there, our closest rivals sluttishly spunking yankee dollar on Duncan Ferguson clones and talented Uruguayan narks, and quite literally no communication from board level. All these things conspired to leave a lot of blues feeling like Bill has finally used up all of his tick at the metaphorical bar of most Toffee's hearts and minds, the greedy(and skint) arl soak that he is.

To lose or maybe even draw, christ we know how to do that this season, a fixture that before a ball had been kicked in August, was as cast iron a home banker as you can get these days, could only be considered as utterly, utterly shite. If we dont start pulling ourselves away from the mire at the bottom of the league, then you soon start running out of 3 point possibilities and things can get bloody hairy. You know what people say about momentum in football, it's safe to say Everton arent swinging Tarzan-like through the Premier League jungle these days, they're doing Wiley Coyote impressions where his rope/vine is too long and he keeps scraping his kite across the floor in pursuit of the mocking Roadrunner(probably the redshite in this case). Meep! Meep!



Everton can welcome Tim Cahill back from the Asia Cup, he'll almost certainly start too if fit. He is integral to this side playing well. Not just his uncanny ability to nick a goal, but the way he relishes shouldering the responsibility to dig deep and fight when you need it most....and by crikey that's what we need right now.

So, three points to the blues then eh? Not on your nelly. Onwards Blue hordes.

Arsenal Retrospective

I didn't watch one minute of the Arsenal game last night, in recent years they've metamorphosed into a gang of greased up Emirates sponsored reptiles, perfectly remastering the art of snide-ing, pissing and moaning. I just couldn't be frigging arsed going or intersniding it. I just felt with other things going on and particularly after Monday nights spunk-a-minute dollar sign marathon hosted by Jim White on Sky Sports News, I had far more pressing matters at hand. Besides, I'm concentrating on the FA Cup now, eggs all in one basket and that, I reckon Ive got 90 minutes concentration left to do before the basket is dropped and the eggs all splat onto the pavement and trickle embarrassingly down the gutter.

I ended up watching a sky+'d quadruple bill of the oustanding Danish Cult Crime Drama 'The Killing', go on, do yourself a fucking favour for once and start watching it this very instant right here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xzy0f/The_Killing_Episode_1/



It beats watching that shite.

Back to the game at ''The Grove'' though *wretches*. Reading between the lines and hearing things back, it seems like we can consider ourselves a wee bit unlucky, in so much as it was a bit of reverse of last weekends slow start and decent finish, it went the other way with Everton looking great in the early exchanges, pushing themselves in front, being collectively organised, then capitulating after losing their shape after some questionably negative substitutions.




Its a bloody crying shame too, as Moyes and his men really went for the jugular last weekend when going 1-0 up and should be congratulated for doing so. Perhaps it was a conscious decision to be happy with the early goal though, to try and tighten things up a bit in the second half and hope for the best. After all, a draw in the league gets you a hard fought possibly priceless point, whereas in the fa cup, it gets you a pain in the arse replay somewhere you haven't won since Lazarus rose from his cave, wearing half mast second hand Ethel Austin polyester slacks and with an empty can of Colt45 in his hand. The bad Paraffin.

Moyes made reference to something that mega twat Fabregas had said to an official afterwards, saying he wouldn't repeat it, but he should of walked for it. Bit timid that really. It seems the days have gone of Moyes making your chest swell, even in defeat, when he held his hands up to us not being up to the mark in games, particularly after changes he himself made and just telling it how it was. You cant help feel for him still though. He clearly loves Everton, he just looks completely exhausted with it all. The boards continued silence is becoming ear splittingly deafening.



He was a trail blazer was 'Wor Davey' in this league when he first really got going for us, a massive part of the Premier League have-nots (as a whole) evolving into industrious, hardworking, results at any cost, tactical outfits under tight restraints. Which ironically could signal his own downfall.

Phil ''Filthy McNasty'' McNulty'' the bbc's head of football and probably Chris Bascombes favourite centrefold, seems to have cottoned on to the growing unrest on the streets of Walton(ha!) and has written a piece on the beebs main site, makes some decent points too, have a squizz:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philmcnulty/2011/02/what_next_for_moyes_everton.html

I wonder if the disinterested local/national media will now cotton on to this crime against all that is right for the game(sic)? You know, like they did when they were debating it on question time and changing administration rules for football teams and that? Probably not is the answer, we ain't news anymore. Blue apathy frighteningly abounds.

He signs it off as quoting the thinking Evertonians winger, Pat Nevin, as saying fundamentally Everton need Moyes, more than Moyes needs Everton. I find it hard to disagree with that, mistakes and titty lips aside. The whole situation just reeks of Mike Ashley making another change in the Summer.



Blackpool need to roll the frig over on Saturday, the premier league bed spread is only big enough for those that want it bad enough..... and currently Everton are luke warm and sat perched on the side of the bed, scratching their heads and wondering whether to go for a piss in the freezing cold or not.