Was at the game today. I thought on the whole both teams cancelled each other out. I don't remember either keeper making a save? I think we did enough to win it. Everton had a bit of pressure at the end of the first half and they started brighter than us. I thought our goal came against the run of play. We did look pretty tight at the back. I thought Cattermole was excellent today ( a couple of wayward passes in the second half aside) Richardson has a bit of a stinker which is a shame as he'd been playing well. I hope Titus is ok and Bardsley (shame to see them come off) I thought Gardner looked good going forward when he came on. It's just a shame O'Neill had to use his subs mainly for injuries this week. Bendtner was dissappointing for me. No wonder Arsenal never scored goals when he was in the side. How many touches does he want. He should have wrapped the game up in the first half. O'Neill needs to tell him to keep it simple. Thought Sess was magic for the goal. It was his bit of skill that should have won us the match hwever I know we are short of options but these two up front are no good. Watching them today and their understanding with each other is woeful. Surely Sess should be looking to run onto any flick Bendtner makes but he's normally not even within 20 foot of Bendtner when either has the ball the other seems to run away from him and expect some kind of wonder pass. Also the amount of times we went from an attacking position to basically passing it back to our keeper. Very frustrating however I think this stems from the lack of a focal point in the middle. Whenever we cross it in you know noone is going to get on the end of it. Still I thought we had the beating of Everton today. They never troubled our keeper and we created the better chances. Oh for a proper centre forward.........
I agree with every thing you say also noticed everton have a solid defence and that seemed to cause alot of the negative back passing.
Agreed, Everton were very well organised defensively and we did struggle to break them down. I wouldn't say they parked the bus but they wern't very expansive. We caught them a couple of times breaking quickly and this seems to be our best chance of scoring (and set peices)
I text my brother in law at half time and said that we would need to score again. I thought they used the full width of the pitch and stretched us until the changes then they tried to play over the top of Richardson. Richardson had a decent game first half but once Bramble and Bardsley went off he struggled; his best games recently have been left side in a four or at the end of last season just off the striker. I can't believe that we backed off Osman and let him run twenty yards into our box for the penalty and how the hell did Webb give that decision, I normally support referees because they have one look at it then they need to make a decision but he had a decent view of the incident, his hesitation made it obvious that he wasn't sure so surely he should consult his linesman who had a perfect view of Cattermole and Osman.
Everton have a good defense... oh what I wouldn't give to have Baines and Jag in the Sunderland side. They are tough to score against, which is why they always do so well each year. This year they are struggling because they can't get goals at the other end.
