If I’m exaggerating here, it’s only by a little bit. We could win 150 games on the trot, and Everton could be winless for month’s…. and we would all expect to lose at Goodison. Hell, we wouldn’t expect much better at Upton Park. We don’t beat Everton. The last time we did was 2007. Before that, I think you have to go back to the parting of the Red Sea. And to add insult to injury, or in this case injury to possible insult, after being relatively knock free of late we come into today’s game missing some key players;
•Stuart Downing hurt his knee playing for England. Well done, Roy. You play him out of the position that got him the call up in the first place, making it an utter waste of his time. I hate International Breaks.
•Diafra Sakho, after looking like he could be a Superhero flying around London saving damsels in distress when he’s not playing football, has a back injury.
•Enner Valencia is hurt. I don’t know where it happened. I don’t care. I’m just pissed off about it.
•Cheikhou Kouyaté injured his knee. He played in the ACN on Wednesday and only trained with us yesterday. Have I told you I hate International Breaks?
•Alex Song. Huh? Where the hell did that come from? First cup of coffee, kids are still asleep, and I see that. Great. Bet you I open the door now to find my car stolen.
The starting lineup caused a stir on Twitter (as if that’s any surprise). For the longest time we called for Sam to play two up front. Today, with so many of the players we have depended on to do just that unavailable, nobody would have been shocked to see us revert back to a lone striker and a prayer. So the fact that both Carroll and Cole started at least cemented the two up top plan. I would have much rather seen Zarate, but Cole has played fairly well so far this year. Sam got the benefit of the doubt from me, but not many others. As for his decision to go with five at the back, that seemed very risky. Why play all three center backs when you only have three in the squad?
The game began in the way many West Ham supporters expected. Everton had the lion’s share of the ball, and we tried to play crosses into our returning Big Man. In the third minute Jenkinson played what would be the first of many balls into the box, only to have Tim Howard grab it before AC could get there. A few minutes later Carlton Cole won the ball from James McCarthy, although he didn’t actually do anything other than chase McCarthy so closely that the ball popped out. That led to Andy Carroll feeding Jenkinson down the right side, who slid a low cross across the goalmouth. Jagielka deflected it away, but to be honest the only West Ham player trying to attack the ball was Carroll and he wasn’t that close.
The ninth minute gave a glimpse of what Sam’s plan seemed to be. Tomkins launched a ball into the box that Carroll won. To be fair, regardless of what anybody might say about him, Andy wins most of the balls launched at him. Maybe if somebody else had been on the end of his knock down the results would have been different. But it was Carlton Cole, and he couldn’t handle it. Then a cross from Cresswell found Carroll, but it lacked the pace needed for any header off the end of it to be effective, and it sailed high. Even with a second striker out there, Carroll looked isolated. Kind of like when you are asked to move a sofa and the guy on the other end can barely lift it off the ground.
Despite the home side having close to 80% possession in the opening ten minutes, it didn’t look all that bad for West Ham. Any time an Everton player touched the ball, he was hounded. Harassed. Bothered. They didn’t have any time to turn with the ball and plan their next move. That was encouraging, and I’m guessing Sam was happy about that.
In the 14th minute, Steven Naismith should have made it 1-0. The reason he didn’t was because after he passed to Lukaku in what he expected to be a give and go, Lukaku decided it was just a give. No go. Adrian handled Lukaku’s shot easily.
A few minutes later the home side had another opportunity that should have opened the scoring, but didn’t. Osman laid a terrific through ball for Coleman, who cut the ball back to a wide open Naismith. But his shot went so far over the bar that Adrian barely moved.
Fans of the English Premier League often chide the fans and players in Serie A and La Liga for their propensity to simulate. OK, I’ll just call it what it is. Diving. But today, we saw some pretty shameful play acting from both sides. The first was from Ross Barkley, who dove through the air without even being touched by Kevin Nolan’s breath, to win a free kick. Thankfully nothing came of it. Then Naismith worked himself into another dangerous position when he took advantage of a deflected ball off his chest, but his shot was from an extreme angle.
The pressure from Everton was mounting, and you could feel a goal coming. It did, when Diving Barkley’s shot deflected off of Winston Reid’s heel, right to Lukaku. Adrian was moving to his left, the direction Barkley’s shot was going. So when it fell Lukaku, the net was wide open. Not going to miss that. Replays showed that Lukaku was definitely in an offside position when Barkley took his shot. I asked my Twitter mate @RockyWHU to clarify the rule there. We may both be wrong, but since the ball deflected off a West Ham player was Lukaku still offside? I’m just putting it out there.
Everton 1, West Ham 0.
The pre-game fears about our formation, with only three in the midfield, were playing themselves out to be more like premonitions. Without Song or Kouyate available to get the ball from the back line, we couldn’t play the ball through the midfield. Nolan was….uhhhhh…..ineffective. So the full backs were left to try and push the ball upfield, which was probably part of Sam’s plan. Most of those attacks came down the right side, with Jenkinson trying to find Carroll. That happened again in the 30th minute, but despite showing good athleticism Carroll’s header sailed wide. Another one minutes later was from too far out. Then a low cross from Jenkinson, followed by a dummy from Cole was just behind Carroll. The ideas were there, but the execution wasn’t. Oh, to have Valencia or Sakho.
The 32nd minute presented the first real opportunity for West Ham when a sloppy pass from Distin was intercepted by Nolan and laid off for Amalfitano. His shot was off target, but to be fair that was his only bad moment of the game. In fact, Morgan was our best player in the first half. Running at the Everton defense, showing glimpses of the creativity that made him so effective against Liverpool and Unreal City. The Everton players knew it, too, and they decided to do something about it.
Minutes after Noble was roughed up by a cynical challenge from Naismith, McCarthy went after Amalfitano. He came a long way to get to his target, and with studs right on top of Amalfitano’s foot he got it. The proverbial ice hockey game broke out, with pushing and shoving on all ends. McCarthy saw a yellow card, as did Winston Reid. The latter means Reid won’t be available for next week’s game against Newcastle. Clattenburg is usually a pretty good ref for us. Not so today.
West Ham had one final mini opportunity right before halftime when Carroll used his strength to win the ball in midfield. He ran with it towards the box and fired, but his shot was wide.
Halftime.
Most West Ham fans took to Twitter to demand that Cole be taken of for Zarate. It didn’t happen at first, but in the 50th minute the clubs official Twitter account not only acknowledged the fans demands, but announced that Zarate was indeed getting ready to enter the game. Seconds later, he did just that along with Matt Jarvis. Cole and a limping Noble came off, possibly still feeling the effects of the Naismith challenge. Tomkins was moved out of the five man defense and into midfield. Sam did that a lot in the Championship, with mixed results. OK, mostly bad. But today the options were limited.
The new formation paid dividends immediately. Zarate won West Ham their first corner of the game by doing nothing more than running at a defender. See, Sam? It worked. The corner came to Carroll, who fired a ball right into Barkley’s chest. After his first half dive I was sort of hoping it broke one of his ribs. No such luck.
Then, instead of waiting for some luck, West Ham made some. Zarate and Amalfitano worked a nice one-two. When Zarate got the ball back, his shot deflected off of Jagielka and over Howard. Zarate wants to run. He wants to get into the area. Does he do everything Sam wants of him all the time? Probably not. But you need players like that, and when you have them you can make your own good fortunes when they were otherwise hiding.
Everton 1, West Ham 1.
West Ham looked energized by their equalizer. Carroll made a great pass to Jenkinson, who then played a cross into the box that Howard had to punch out of danger. Everton looked like they wanted to prevent West Ham from feeling too optimistic when McCarthy got the ball on the left, cut inside, and fired a long range shot wide.
Amalfitano was still West Ham’s best player, so Everton decided one nasty challenge in the first half wasn’t enough to take him down. Mirallas decided to take his best shot and received a yellow card for his troubles. That’s when West Ham got into the acting game. Tomkins reacted to the Mirallas tackle with a silly push. Mirallas pushed back, touching Tomkins chest. Obviously the chest pain shot up to his cheeks, and JT grabbed his face. Maybe he was angling for a move to Sampdoria? Embarrassing.
In the 63rd minute Naismith skillfully controlled a long pass from Osman with his chest and sent Lukaku through on goal. His pass was just a bit too far to the left, forcing the hefty Belgian into a bad angle. Then came the kind of substitution you simply know will have an effect on a game. Mirallas off, Eto’o on. I bet each and every one of us had some vision of him hurting us at some point.
From the West Ham point of view, everything was going through Zarate. Both good, and a little bad. In the 67th minute he tracked back to win the ball right outside of our box…only to lose it seconds later. I wonder which moment Sam will remember? Zarate then won a free kick down the left side. The ball eventually found its way to Amalfitano whose shot was deflected wide for a corner.
This is not Nolan bashing, but he had a lousy game. His only decent moment came in the 71st minute when his long pass fell perfectly into the path of Matt Jarvis. But instead of putting his shot across the goal, he went for the near post….and it was nowhere near the goal. Moments later Jenkinson won another corner, but nothing came of that either.
The visions of Eto’o hurting us turned into reality a minute later when Everton launched a counter attack. Collins brought down Lukaku a few yards past the center circle, but Clattenburg rightfully played the advantage. The ball fell to Eto’o. A younger player may have rushed it, passed too early, or shot it wildly. But class is class, and Eto’o has oodles of it. He slid a ball perfectly to Osman who tapped it in.
Everton 2, West Ham 1.
West Ham came very close to a second equalizer when Matt Jarvis’s low shot found James Collins directly in front of Howard. Ginge tried to redirect the ball into the net, but Howard made a fine save.
Ross Barkley came off in the 79th minute for Muhamed Besic. Not particularly noteworthy, but figured since I made a note of it I’d include it.
The next substitution was beyond baffling to me. In the 82nd minute, Vaz Te climbed out of whatever hole Sam had been keeping him in and entered the game. OK, fine. But when every single West Ham fan likely expected Nolan to come off, Amalfitano got the hook.
Our best player overall on the day. Off.
Our worst player overall on the day. Stayed.
Zarate won another corner in the 84th minute, and Carroll once again got to it. His header was off target, and he tried to claim it deflected off Naismith. Replays showed no such thing.
Five minutes of added time gave West Ham a bit of hope that at least there was time to salvage a draw. Problem was, Everton controlled the majority of those five minutes. It should have been 3-1 when Eto’o couldn’t convert a pass from Coleman right in front of Adrian.
West Ham had one chance. A deflection off of Jenkinson landed right in front of Vaz Te, with space on the right side. Here was his chance to show who he was. Which he did, with a useless ball that flew over the bar for a goal kick. A final cross by Jenkinson, his 732nd of the game, was grabbed by my fellow American and Everton ran out the clock.
I guess it’s time to release the parachute, fire the retro rockets, and prepare to come back down to earth. I can’t say I didn’t expect the result. I did. I actually put a 2-1 loss down in my pool. But with so many of our best players out, a bus parking attempt at a 0-0 draw like we tried last year wouldn’t have shocked me. Instead, we played. And at times played well enough to have gotten a result. Would things have been different had Zarate started instead of Cole? Who knows. I won’t get in to those “what ifs”. We were in it. It could have ended differently. Most trips to Goodison don’t even let us think that.
I’m looking forward to seeing them at our place later this year.