Well, that’s the trouble with going unbeaten – defeat comes a lot harder and it doesn’t feel good does it?
I suppose it was a predictable enough game against Everton, they never give us an easy time but if I’m honest, I expected at least a draw out of it. Not that we necessarily deserved one or anything because I wouldn’t take anything away from Everton, they were good for the win whilst we weren’t quite good enough.
We started well enough, looking pretty controlled in the early stages with a few chances going begging. So when we took the lead through Malouda in the 17th minute it was all good. Particularly with the news that United at 1-1 against Villa were a man down. Saha was causing us a few problems though and as Everton’s confidence grew, so did his presence – and it started to look a lot less comfortable…..and then came the dreaded set-piece.
A corner in the 33rd minute saw Saha head Donovan’s cross past Petr Cech, as our 16th of 22 goals conceded this season came from yet another set-piece. Everton finished the first-half the stronger of the two sides with Donovan and Saha linking up well. And when Donovan was brought down in the box by the out-of-sorts Carvalho, it was the former United man who stepped up to take the spot-kick. Fortunately, whilst I’d put money on most of expecting us to go in 2-1 behind at the break (sorry Petr but that’s how it is) – strangely enough, we didn’t because Cech had the audacity to prove us wrong.
Everton obviously didn’t dwell on the penalty during the break though because they battled for everything in the second half and as our frustration grew they just seemed to get more into their stride. They looked the more likely to score, so when Saha got his second after 75 minutes, we shouldn’t have been that surprised. Obviously what was more surprising was that on this occasion we didn’t seem to be able to turn it around.
For a while it looked as if we might – it’s not as if we weren’t making any effort at all – because whilst we didn’t seem to have the same conviction (or the legs) we had against Arsenal, we still had the chances, maybe luck was the missing ingredient as Drogba’s header came back off the bar though.
Saha ran rings around us in the first half but we apparently hadn’t learnt from it because whilst we kept him a little quieter in the second half, we didn’t completely gag him. As for us, our finishing wasn’t anywhere near as clinical as it could or should have been against a resilient Everton defence that looked more jawbreaker than toffee when it came to finishing them off.
TEAMS
EVERTON: Howard, Neville, Heitinga, Distin, Baines, Donovan, Arteta (Rodwell 73), Osman, Bilyaletdinov (Gosling 85), Cahill, Saha (Senderos 95).
Unused subs: Nash, Vaughan, Yakubu, Coleman.
CHELSEA: Cech, Ivanovic, Carvalho, Terry, Cole (Ballack 56), Malouda, Lampard, Mikel (Sturridge 75), Zhirkov,
Drogba, Anelka (Kalou 66).
Unused subs: Hilario, Ferreira, Matic, Bruma.
GOALS
EVERTON: Saha 33, 75
CHELSEA: Malouda 17
