FA Carling Premiership Game 17: Saturday 6 December 1997 Leeds United 0 - 0 Everton (Half-time: 0 - 0) Crowd: 34869 Referee: P A Durkin (Portland)
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Everton Report - Kev Lewis

What a useless oaf he is. You would expect him to win a few headers, which he did. In fact one or two were good knock downs in dangerous positions, but overall showed no appetite and had nothing else to offer.

Everton were crap at the back when they had to play the ball on the floor, but we didn't get at them often enough.

If Wallace had moved on with the ball, and clipped it past the keeper instead of shooting 1st time, it would have been different. For the rest of the game w then didn't shoot when we had a chance. Jimmy (no left foot), Wallace and kewell were guilty of this. Harry-boy missed a golden chance near the end from a cross in from the left too.

Great penalty save from Nige just before half time. Fat arse Speed was gutted :-).

Other observatations.

I lost count of the times Martyn just landed the ball perfectly on the head of one of the Everton defenders. Obviously it can't be thrown short all the time, so some way of giving our small forwards a chance has to be found.

The forwards seemed to push back onto the toes of their markers, so Martyn shoud have had room to drop it in front. More movement is required, criss-crossing, coming short so the ball can be played over the marking defender for the other forward going into the gap. Even if our guy does not win it, a tactic which stops the defender getting a clean header does half the job. To be fair the Leeds midfield did pick up a few of these headers, but it is a far from reliable way of gaining posession. I think a forward who can win the occasional ball, either clearance or cross is a must. Provided the team don't become obsessed with using that option.

Hasselbaink looks the best of the 3 forwards to me. But his lack of a left foot lets him down in some shooting positions.

I was impressed with Kewell, more so when he dropped into midfield. The rest of the team seemed to look to him to unlock the door, which he nearly did, with a number of good runs & passes. However, it's job to work out how to fit all the left-footed players into the team. Perhaps a midfield of.

Hopkin  Haaland  Ribiero
         Kewell  

Scores.

Martyn 8
Haaland 7 - steady
Wetherall 8 - Didn't win everything in the air, but played Ferguson as well as anyone can.
Radebe 9 - Leeds MOM
Kelly 6 - Not involved enough in attack.
Bowyer 6 - Ditto
Haaland 7 - tracked Speed well, plugged the gaps.
Ribiero 7 - Competent game, works hard, and shows skill. Not enough key passes.
Wallace 6 - Not entirely his fault, cos it all came to him in the air, however gets caught off side too often for the ball over the top - especially as it is one of the main attacking moves.
Kewell 7
Sub Jimmy 7 Sharp & quick.

vs Everton - Nick Allen

We looked lively for about twenty minutes, Rod was through and should have scored, Harry had a great shot well saved, and there were a few close calls from corners. After that came to nothing the game died on its feet. Wetherall chopped Barmby for a penalty, Speed - the only Everton player who looked anything like - had the penalty saved by Nigel, diving low to his left. It only picked up for us when Jimmy came on, a couple of times the ball was played into his feet around the box, and he showed what he could do, shimmying to the by-line and pulling back good crosses that didn't get the finishes they deserved.

Everton were shit. Very big. And came for the draw.

And for all those who advocated buying Big Dunc - watch the video of this game to see what a useless lump of wood this guy is - and while we're at it 2 other guys we tried to sign, shone on saturday Vega and Scales, did well to miss out on them I think.

POINTS

MARTYN -8- great penalty save. had little else to do
HALLE -4- shockingly bad distribution- so bad that Jimmy took time out on his way back to defend a free kick to bollock him, and he was right- and positional sense
ROBERTSON -5- what a waste of money - you lot in the programme I mean.
WETHERALL -6- a real "blood and guts" battle with Dunc. stupid foul for the pen.
RADEBE -8- best CHalf in the English league bar none.
BOWYER -6- quiet
HAALAND -5- ineffective clogger - OK he's very fit, but he can't pass the ball.
KELLY -6- again quiet, but adds a nice balance
RIBEIRO -6- good work, but little achieved creatively
WALLACE -6- missed when through, caused a few problems, but quiet on the whole
KEWELL -6- began like wildfire, faded after 30mins never to resurface.
JIMMY came on as sub for 20 mins. worth about -7-.

Bad day, good pastie - Dave Woolmer

Got up - lost contact lens. Got annoyed. Broke shaver. Got very annoyed. Turndled off top Leeds, via opticians...

My first Apelphi visit. Due to bad start to day I was fairly quiet and narked off at lack of s shave. Next time I will be annoying noisy bastard don't worry.

Good to put more faces to names. Someone remarked that people never look how you imagine them, but I would disagree. Mike and Claire are both as I pictured them, as is the Kinbg of Tonga, except more so. Good to see Nige is still an arse.

Absolutely crackin' giant pastie, chips 'n' peas, plus a few pints left me vastly bloated. Realised at about half 2 I needed to collect my ticket from ground, so pegged it and was there bang on kick-off.

Match was crap. Sort of West Ham game without the last 20 minutes to redeem it.

It would all have been different if Wallave hadn't missed a relative sitter after 4 minutes. The ball was beautifully slid through between centre-backs for Wallace to run on to. He first touch was crap, he panicked a bit, controlled it and shot, rather than running on and committing keeper. Decent but regulation save.

Given the way this pass carved them open so easily, it was depressing that we never tried it again, preferring to lump it over their heads and hoping for a lucky bounce.

Only other highlight of first half for us in attack was a superb quick corner by Kelly that reached Kewell at back post unmarked. His shot was well saved, but realistically Harry should have buried it.

Their penalty - seemed clear cut to me. Wetherall (?) was lucky not to get away without further action as lanky twat would have been clean through. Great save by Nige, but terrible pen., exactly at right height fort the keeper.

Second half managed to be worse. The advent of Jimmy did improve things as he realised the way to beat simplistic off-side traps and thick centre-backs is to run at them. Very disappointed that Kewell didn't do this more.

Overall 0-0 was fair result. Got the impression that we were below par, whilst Everton played to their maximum. I'd put a fiver on them to go down. With intelligent midfielders their off-side trap could be slaughtered. We really missed Hopkin.

Doors, and the scores therein....

Martyn - 8 - great pen save and general class.
Halle - 7- steady, safe, uninspiring
Robertson - 5 - unsteady, unsafe, inspiring to opposition. His distribution defies belief.
Wetherall - 7 - did ok against Lanky twat, didn't win anything in the aiur when going forward.
Radebe - 9 - class as usual. I actually wondered whether that booking was intentional, as he will now miss Bolton at home (for which he must have been very doubtful anyway) and Scouse away. In effect he will nopw only serve a 1 match ban if you accept he wouldn't have played against Bolton. During the secong half he made 2 or 3 uncharacteristic pointless fouls, and kept getting warned by the ref, culminating in him scything a player down from behind in a harmless midfield position.
Ribeiro - 7 - that which was good from midfield usually came from him.
Haaland - 6 - safe, but looks better with Hopkin.
Bowyer - 5 - he's not getting any better. Distribution is utterly appalling, always seems to be 5 yards behind the play, joining attacks just as they break down, and getting back just as the shot goes in.
Kelly - 6 -dodgy attitude day. Didn't really seem up for it.
Wallace - 5 - bad old days of Wallace. At one stage ran almost all the way across the 6-yard box turning down about 5 opportunities to shoot before laying it off to Robertson. If he made the kind of intelligent diagonal runs he did against Liverpool he'd have torn this lot to shreds. Why didn't he?
Kewell - 6 - still looks class, but seemed tired and below par.

Subs:

Jimmy - 7 - always looks good when given 20 minutes against tired opposition. Needs to replicate theses runs when he actually starts matches.

Personally I think it's daft to talk about different formations and sweeping changes. Hopkin for Bowyer will restore passing quality to midfield. Jimmy will have to come in for Kewell. Beyond that, let's just remember to keep the ball on the deck.

Kendall's telling point - Ian Ross

An afternoon that had always threatened to redefine the word moribund was distinguished only by the honesty of the respective managers afterwards.

George Graham of Leeds could have insisted that after four straight league wins a poor performance was likely, but his enthusiasm for gilding the lily had been so drained by what he had witnessed he did nothing more interesting than state the obvious.

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