“Ladies and Gentlemen,” booms the reality TV Bard. “Last night we had the most watched show in Idol history“. It’s the last word which grates. It could be changed for countless other terms and it wouldn’t even register on my radar.

History is a powerful word. By using history Seacrest implies that American Idol has a long and storied background. It doesn’t, and that’s the problem. I can see what they our trying to do, history is something that everyone wants, it adds gravitas and legitimacy. The Premier League uses this trick too – history is good as long as you have it.

In English football, history is increasingly becoming a hoop that trophy winners have to jump through. Without history you’re a second class citizen, a usurper, a johnny-come-lately. Without history your trophy doesn’t gleam as much as it could.

Interestingly, all the clubs that are taunted for their percieved lack of history, do have a past. Both Chelsea and Man City, whilst not giant trophy gobbling monster-clubs – are by no means minnows – and have won big trophies in the past.

I’ve been stung into questioning the history of both these clubs in the past. Man City, under Mark Hughes, pursued Joleon Lescott with all the relentless amorality of date rapists. Unable to take no for an answer they ran us off the road and took one of our best players against our will. This season they initially looked like they would steamroller everyone. Then they looked a mess. And finally, at the death they won it.

Man City are champions, but – astoundingly – they last won the league in 1968. This clearly means that they don’t deserve it. Although does that mean that Man Utd – who before their Premier League trophy binge had last won the title in 1967 – didn’t deserve to win in 1993? Surely the only criteria for being champions, the only hurdles that need to be jumped, are accruing more points over 38 games than anyone else?

What’s that you say? Clubs that “buy” the league don’t count?… That’s an interesting assertion too. If a club doesn’t deserve to lift the title because they spent ridiculous amounts on players then is the opposite true? Do we moan and gnash teeth when a team gets relegated after spending no money? No, we instead tell them they were asking for it. Money makes the football world go round. It always has.

There’s a club that fired their manager in the back of a taxi, brought in a hard nosed replacement and spent spent spent until they won the title. That club was known as the Merseyside Millionaires, as the Bank of England. We were that club.

There’s a club that bullied its way into promotion to the top division at the expense of a local rival. They also upped and moved in search of a more lucrative demographic of fans. That club is Arsenal.

That’s not to say that both clubs don’t have glorious sepia tinged seasons and great black and white hopes in their histories too. This is how history always seems to be, it’s always a force for good. It was always better back then. The glass of history isn’t just half full, it’s sloshing over with tales of brilliance. That’s why the Premier League and American Idol want history.

Is the present as important as the past?As Man City assemble a footballing Death Star, we Evertonians sit in a small hut in the swampy Dagobah system reminiscing about past glories like pitiful Jedi. Our past is very important. Reading books by esteemed Evertonians like Dr France and James Corbett has made me even more addicted to our history. We have the greatest striker and the greatest goalkeeper in British football history. We have stars in every position, and reading about their exploits helps ease the pain about our current plight. But there’s something not right, almost bitter, about implying that because a team hasn’t won a title for a decades, that they shouldn’t be winning it now.

The 60′s is seen by some as a golden era for English football. In some ways it was – the sheer variety of title winners would be mind blowing in the Premier League:

• 1960/61 Tottenham Hotspur
• 1961/62 Ipswich Town
• 1962/63 Everton
• 1963/64 Liverpool
• 1964/65 Man Utd
• 1965/66 Liverpool
• 1966/67 Man Utd
• 1967/68 Man City
• 1968/69 Leeds Utd
• 1969/70 Everton

And it wasn’t just the title winners that were ever-changing, the entire league table was a swirling primordial soup – unpredictable and exciting. Moaning about Man City winning seems odd, finally we have a fresh face!

City’s resurgence is good for everyone because it means there are 6 big spenders competing for 4 Champions League positions. These teams are equipped for the high altitude climbs of the top four, they can’t survive outside it for long. Even with Abramovich as their owner, Chelsea will be desperately hurting if they don’t qualify for next season’s Champions League. Once these teams fall out of the top four they struggle, flapping around like a fish out of water. Owners get desperate and make rash decisions, sackings ensue as does chaos. Teams like Everton are leaner and cheaper, but can survive without European football.

The big myth is that everything in football can be predicted. Billionaires can take over teams, transfer sprees can go awry, and with the imminent introduction of Financial Fair Play spending will be restricted. I don’t buy into the idea that the top four game of musical chairs will come to a sudden halt when FFP comes along; that everything will freeze and the top four will stay that way forever. Six into four doesn’t go – and FFP combined with itchy spending fingers will hurt the big teams.

History is our link to Everton’s glorious past but it doesn’t mean that all out history is good, and it certainly doesn’t mean only certain clubs with the requisite past glories deserve to win titles. Nothing is like the old days, even the old days. History can be overrated.

And now they fire their third manager in a couple of seasons. John W Henry is showing that he has that deadly, University of California acquired, combination of management skills – he is incompetent AND ruthless.

This all puts Everton’s search for new owners or substantial equity investment in perspective and confirms what many are saying: Be very, very, careful what you wish for; to the list of inept football club owners which currently includes Randy Lerner, Venky’s, the Glazers, Hicks & Gillette, David Murray, Craig White and Sacha Gaydamak can now be added Fenway Sports Group and their principal John W Henry II.

The Toffees secured seventh place in the league after once again dismantling a top-five team plank by plank with a fine display of attacking football. For the first time in seven seasons the Blues finish ahead of the Reds: by four points and with a superior goal difference. It’s surprising what £105m can buy – even more surprising what £6.5m, invested half way through the season, can buy.

For the first time in weeks David Moyes had the luxury of being able to select from a virtually fully-fit squad for the visit of Champions League chasing Newcastle United. Leighton Baines came in at left-back, Sylvain Distin dropped to the bench, while Phil Neville and Darron Gibson returned in midfield.

Pleasingly Goodison was packed to the rafters and once again a passionate home crowd and atmospheric old stadium played their part in subduing uppity visitors. it took the Blues only a minute or two to find their stride. Newcastle fleetingly looked as though they might cause trouble and almost went in front in the opening seconds when a free-kick ricocheted around the Everton box but, after Ba had fired a shot well over, Everton imposed themselves and the visitors were played off the park for the next forty-four minutes with goals from Pienaar and Jelavic sealing the points.

It was Marouane Fellaini who teed up the first goal on 16 minutes for Steven Pienaar, whose strike from outside the box took a deflection off defender Mike Williamson’s backside and looped in. The diminutive South African almost had another in the 21st minute but rifled narrowly wide from a Leon Osman cross.

Everton kept pushing forward and just before the half-hour they doubled their lead when Nikica Jelavic scored a superb solo goal. A beautiful long pass from Heitinga found Jelavic who skilfully controlled the ball and left Coloccini trailing in his wake before unleashed a powerful shot which Tim Krul saved brilliantly but the Croat was alert enough to flick home the rebound for his 11th goal since joining in January. The Toffees were launching wave after wave of attacks, were denying Newcastle any space or time on the ball and their keeper had to be at his best, which in truth is pretty good, to keep the score-line respectable.

The Newcastle changing room must have been lively at half-time and Alan Pardew signalled his intention to attack in the second period by substituting both full-backs and switching to a 4-3-3 formation. Moments after the restart Cisse dragged a good opportunity wide, but Everton were still not satisfied. After Darron Gibson brought another fine save out of Krul with a free-kick the Toffees added a third on 65 minutes when Johnny Heitinga headed home another fine Gibson free-kick from close range.

Tony Hibbert then managed to get himself on the score-sheet. Unfortunately for the hundreds of Evertonians who wager each week on such an outcome, it was in the wrong goal, as the full back got in a frightful mix-up and headed past his own keeper. Newcastle sighted a possible lifeline and Howard had to claw away a header from Cisse. However the Geordies could offer no more and Everton might have had a fourth with Cahill being denied by Krul, Gibson again shooting wide and Osman hitting the woodwork. There were disappointing scenes after the final whistle as players from both sides got involved in a skirmish, with Cahill being shown a red card after appearing to grab Cabaye by the neck.

Everton (4-2-3-1): Howard; Hibbert, Heitinga (Distin 70), Jagielka, Baines; Neville(c) (Cahill 74, sent off 90+5), Gibson; Osman, Fellaini, Pienaar; Jelavic (Stracqualursi 83)

Subs not used: Mucha, Gueye, Barkley, Coleman.

Sent Off: Cahill       Booked: Baines, Heitinga.

NEWCASTLE UNITED (4-4-2): Krul; Perch (Marveaux 46), Williamson, Coloccini(c), Santon (R Taylor 46); Cabaye, Tiote (Sh Ameobi 81), Ben Arfa, Gutierrez; Cisse, Ba

Subs not used: Elliot, Gosling, Obertan, Ferguson

Booked: Tiote

Referee: Andre Marriner

Gate: 39,517

Dr France and his wife Elizabeth at the Palace

David and Elizabeth France

Yesterday Dr France received his OBE at Buckingham Palace. We are so happy for this great Evertonian!

I’ve never met David France face to face. First I read about him, then I listened to him, finally I was lucky enough to interview him. Now we talk via email and phone, two Evertonians living in American exile, far away from our club.

Amazingly for someone so devoted to Everton, his life hasn’t been that of a Toffee anorak, totting up Everton matches like a bird watcher ticking off his umpteenth Black-bellied Plover. Dr France, who as a youngster struggled with learning and couldn’t properly read until he was 14, is a self made man.

He started as a gas fitter, enrolled part time as a student, earned a Bsc and Msc. Then an MBA and a PHD. He had a wonderful career as an oil and gas executive, ran marathons galore, was awarded the Joule Medal for his work with hydrogen, and was in such demand that his emigration to the US was sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy.

The UK’s loss was America’s gain, but he never stopped loving Everton. There’s a corner of the Pacific Northwest, San Juan Island to be precise, that is forever Everton. Dr France, who has lived in the US since 1978, has travelled back countless times to watch Everton. He once calculated the distance of these footballing pilgrimages, he has travelled to the moon and back… twice.

When I heard that David was going to be awarded an OBE in recognition of his services to football in the United Kingdom and Europe, I was surprised. Not because I didn’t think he deserved it, but because I thought he already had an OBE. Like a song that you think you’ve already heard, my assumption was that David already sported an OBE, trailing his surname like a star struck fan.

Dr France is a powerful name in Everton circles, the kind of name that is invoked to end arguments or start wistful conversations. A website once ran a poll asking who Everton fans trust the most. Out of eight candidates, the Davids topped the list; David Moyes 35%, David France 34%.

When an American journalist asked Dr France for his thoughts on the Merseyside Derby, David responded: “Blues versus Reds is humility versus arrogance; loyalty versus entitlement; and art versus pornography.” The journalist told him he was Everton Crazy, and so the title of his latest book was born. In “Everton Crazy”, a Herculean trawl through Everton’s history, Dr France writes about every Evertonian that has played 5 or more games for this club. Over 900 pages and counting, it cleans the Augean stables and paints them blue, containing pen portraits of a wilderness of stars.

Everton Collection

“I treated them all equally – as my children. Strike that; spoilt children.” – Dr France on his collection.

For a quarter of a century David built up the Everton Collection, the greatest set of football writings and memorabilia on the planet. In a pre-EBay era he painstakingly mapped the Everton genome for generations to come.

The Collection contains over 10,000 artifacts including items that pre-date the formation of the football league. Programmes include the 1889 Everton-Newton Heath game, Manchester United’s oldest known programme.

Amongst the programmes, cigarette cards, rare photos, medals and even shirts, are the ledgers – the modest stars of the collection. They are 10,000 handwritten pages of “unvarnished history of Everton football club” containing every major decision in the birth of Everton. Unsurprisingly, the Everton Collection is also the best record of Liverpool Football Club’s early history.

When experts estimated the Collection’s market value at as much as £2 million, Dr France worked with Everton to establish the Everton Collection Charitable Trust. He then transferred all his archives to the Trust for a fraction of their valuation, thereby guaranteeing public ownership of his archives.

Everton Former Player’s Foundation.

“The Everton Family is one of life’s masterpieces.” – Dr France

This charity, founded in 1999, seeks to aid former players hit by the twin punches of financial trouble and chronic injury. It has spent over £100,000 per year during the past decade, with any Everton player who has made one first-team appearance qualifying for assistance. Hips and knees have been repaired and lives have been rebuilt for players decimated by the cold reality of football in a bygone era; back when men were men and heroes were paid villainously meagre sums.

It’s an initiative since taken on by Real Madrid and Barcelona amongst other top European clubs. Even UEFA have now taken Dr France’s brainchild on as their model. At the 11th anniversary dinner of the Everton Former-Players’ Foundation in 2010, Barcelona’s Ramon Alfonseda revealed that 0.5% of every player’s salary at the Catalan giants would go towards their former players’ organization.

Més que un fan 

David France, BSc MSc MBA PhD and – as of Friday 4th May – OBE. With typical modesty, he says it stands for One Big Evertonian.

David should cheer us up. It has been a grotty season for many reasons, we’ve been beaten three times by the “bad” guys. We’ve had Liverpool’s very own Roy Racist score against us, and even Andy Carroll kick us out of the cup with a header. Fans piously genuflect at mention of Barcelona, masters of tiki-taka and the “true” way of playing football. Their motto is “Més que un club”, (“more than a club”), but even this supposedly heavenly force for good was beaten by Chelsea and their parked bus. David France is “més que un fan”, and he should restore our faith in football.

Nikica Jelavic extended his remarkable scoring spree to 10 in 13 matches as Everton ran in a glut of goals for the third successive league match against a Fulham side who were completely outplayed. The Croatia international scored twice before half-time with Marouane Fellaini and substitute Tim Cahill also netting for the Blues. It was Steven Pienaar though, who was man of the match, with three assists in a scintillating, creative performance. Tony Hibbert too was outstanding, this writer rubbed his eyes; who was this exciting wing-back whipping in cross after cross, had Moyes secretly signed Bayern’s Philipp Lahm? No it was Hibbo, still goal-less of course, but in a rich vein of form, enterprising, exciting and assured.

David Moyes named the same starting eleven as at Old Trafford last Sunday, with Sylvain Distin covering for the injured Leighton Baines at left-back. Many eyes in the home crowd were on Texan Clint Dempsey who has been strongly linked with a move to Goodison in the summer, however it was another striker, Nikica Jelavic, who is fast developing a reputation as a clinical finisher, who stole the limelight.

After just seven minutes he struck a free-kick to which Pavel Pogrebnyak raised his hand; Phil Dowd pointed to the spot and the centre-forward made the conversion look easy. Minutes later Jelavic struck the woodwork following a superb piece of skill, impossibly controlling the ball with his instep and shooting in one instant. On seventeen minutes Fellaini extended the lead. Hardly inconspicuous and, as at Old Trafford, playing in a more advanced role, the Belgian rose unmarked to head home a Pienaar corner. Everton were oozing confidence and their grip on the game was absolute. The third came when Jelavic rounded Mark Schwarzer, allowed the Australian to regain his composure, only to shoot low between his legs. Tim Cahill, on as a half-time substitute for the injured Darron Gibson, added a fourth on the hour when he interchanged passes delightfully with Pienaar and toe-poked home before giving the corner flag some long overdue punishment in front of the Gwladys Street end.

With twelve goals in their last three league games and an eighth top eight finish of Davis Moyes’ tenure looking likely, Everton are finishing the season strongly. That FA Cup defeat now seems a long time ago and clearly stands out as a rogue result, out of keeping with the team’s form and capabilities. Call us old-fashioned and sentimental but with new sponsor Nike about to unveil their kit this would be the perfect time to award Everton’s latest centre-forward Nikica Jelavic the number 9 shirt.   

Everton (4-2-3-1): Howard; Hibbert, Heitinga, Jagielka, Distin; Neville©, Gibson (Cahill 46); Osman, Fellaini (Barkley 75), Pienaar (Gueye 84); Jelavic

Unused subs: Mucha, Stracqualursi, McFadden, Anichebe

Fulham (4-4-1-1): Schwarzer; Riise, Hangeland, Senderos (Baird 46), Hughes; Duff, Diarra (Etuhu 82), Dembele, Frei; Dempsey; Pogrebniak (Murphy 66)

Unused subs: Stockdale, Kasami, Kacaniklic, Sa

Referee: Phil Dowd

Gate: 31,885

Time!

Everton produced a superb performance, twice coming back from two-goal deficits, to deny Manchester United victory at Old Trafford and blow the title-race wide open. After the disappointment of the FA Cup semi-final defeat both players and management came bouncing back with a display of disciplined passing, incisive attacking football and thoughtful tactics which stunned the home crowd, left Sir Alex fuming and will have baffled the global audience of United ‘supporters’ watching on TV.

With Leighton Baines out with a hamstring injury Sylvain Distin was asked to play at left-back and Phil Neville partnered Darron Gibson in central-midfield. Marouane Fellaini was pushed further forward to work with Pienaar and Osman in a 4-2-3-1 formation. The big-haired Belgian revelled in this more attacking role with his strength in the air, control off his chest and on the ground unsettling Ferdinand and Evans and causing constant problems.

Nikica Jelavic is a lethal finisher but had not scored with his head since his arrival from Glasgow. He put this right on thirty-three minutes when he met a deep cross from Tony Hibbert at the far post and looped a sumptuous header over De Gea into the far side of the goal. So now we know; not only can he can score left and right footed, he is also an adroit and deadly header of the ball. £5m for this player is surely the best piece of business ever concluded by the management triumvirate of Moyes, Kenwright and Elstone.

United hauled themselves back into the game after forty-one minutes when Wayne Rooney headed an Evra cross past Tim Howard from close range. The home team had been slow to get going but for the final ten minutes of the first-half started to move through the gears and with Everton giving a good account of themselves, more goals seemed certain. And they came in a rush around the hour mark with Welbeck and Nani each finishing beautifully in the space of three minutes to seemingly put United in control. However Fellaini kept the Blues in the game when he met another Hibbert cross with a superb first-time volley but saw it cancelled out almost immediately by Rooney who restored the home side’s two-goal cushion with another quality finish.  

At this point David Moyes made what, we are sure to some, was a controversial substitution when he withdrew Leon Osman and brought on James McFadden. However the move worked well with the Scot, though lacking in pace, holding the ball comfortably and distributing thoughtfully. United still looked vulnerable every time the Toffees came forward – which was often – and Jelavic put Everton back in the game on eighty-three minutes when he latched on to a poor header from Evans and half-volleyed home from about twelve yards.  On the touch-line Sir Alex was apoplectic and David Moyes animated while the Old Trafford faithful appeared subdued and certainly did not get behind their team as one might have expected.

Everton completed their comeback on eighty-five minutes when Steven Pienaar finished a superb move which cut Manchester United to shreds. The South African played a short pass to Phil Neville and ran infield, at which point Neville played the ball into Fellaini on the left of the area. He ignored Evans, who wasn’t tight enough, and turned to play a square pass across goal for Pienaar to slide it first time under De Gea from eight yards. Four-four with five minutes to go and United came surging forward, but could not create any clear-cut chances as Everton held firm. Inexplicably referee Mike Jones found five minutes of added time; we awaited the arrival of substitute Ashley Young, his dive and the inevitable penalty award, but mysteriously they never came. What did come was a superb save by Tim Howard who dived high to his right to tip over a goal-bound Rio Ferdinand pile-driver from the edge of the area. Oh and that five minutes of added time; Mike Jones added a further 40 seconds to it, but still failed to elicit a United winner.

Following this memorable performance there can be only one question; where was this Everton last Saturday?  

MANCHESTER UNITED: (4-4-2) De Gea; Da Silva, Ferdinand, Evans, Evra(C); Valencia (Hernadnez 89), Carrick, Scholes (Jones 86), Nani; Rooney, Welbeck

Unused subs: Amos, Giggs, Smalling, Park, Young

Booking: Evra

EVERTON: (4-2-3-1) Howard; Hibbert, Jagielka, Heitinga, Distin (Cahill 83); Neville(C), Gibson; Osman (McFadden 64), Fellaini, Pienaar; Jelavic

Unused subs: Mucha, Stracqualursi, Gueye, Barkley, Anichebe

Bookings: Distin, Neville

Referee: Mike Jones

Attendance: 75,522

All this makes defeat harder to bear, it wasn’t supposed to happen, it was unthinkable. A season turned in thirty fetid minutes from the cusp of glory to raw disappointment. No wonderful Sunday morning contemplating a Wembley Cup Final and those European games under the lights next season. And still no well-heeled buyer riding over the horizon. Back to the bleakness of a summer spent trying to resist all the rumours linking our best players, even our manager, with United, Arsenal, Spurs and all the rest, back to a world devoid of dreams, a world which tells us, over and over again, that our football club is a failure and that we, by association, are failures too.

Evertonians of a certain age have seen two great teams and bags of silverware through the era of Labone, Ball and Royle to that of Southall, Steven and Reid. We passed our youth and middle years gorging on these highs and now our kids get nothing it seems but sand. We saw lows, the Gordon Lee years and Bernie the Bolt, but we saw the glorious highs too. Our highs were not earned by having to bear decade after decade of disappointment, they came in a seemingly natural cycle, for us the sun would always rise again. It is a much tougher proposition being an Everton supporter these days in this League of ours, unbalanced as it is by the dollars of billionaires and the outrageous partiality of paymaster News International and its assorted organs. This all sounds negative, gloomy and irreversible and it is tough, but not without hope.

Some might, unkindly, call Sylvain Distin a journeyman; after all he played for lots of clubs before Everton – PSG, Newcastle, City, Portsmouth. Yet it was our giant centre-back who showed by his behaviour after the final whistle what it means to be an Evertonian. He stayed on the pitch and supplicated himself before 30,000 broken and angry Evertonians in a heart-felt apology for his mistake. In this Frenchman, nickname ‘cyborg’, we see the antithesis of the diving, card waving, conmen of the modern game, in him resides the true spirit of the game and the club. It is in safe hands. There were lots of mistakes last Saturday, there have been mistakes made over the years in the stewardship of the club, but just so long as the spirit, the heart of this club, is kept burning, for the day when we once again walk on the high ground, as we surely will, then this writer for one can be content.  

Like Samson shaved of his locks, an effectively wing-less Everton were never able to exploit the wide-open spaces of Wembley and the obvious weakness of a Liverpool who indulged the giggle of playing Agger at left back and still had the last laugh. With Steven Pienaar ineligible, Royston Drenthe on walkabout and Seamus Coleman not selected, David Moyes chose as his wide players the inexperienced Gueye – who effectively froze – and Leon Osman, who may be an excellent footballer, but does not have the pace to be a natural winger. The selection of Gueye had another, ultimately terminal effect on Everton – it effectively neutralized Leighton Baines as an attacking force. The full-back barely ventured beyond the half-way line such was his lack of confidence in the young Frenchman’s defensive capabilities. Had Osman been operating in front of him from the start, it might have been a different story. The Blues lost this game on the flanks; their centre-forward starved of opportunity as they were outcrossed by Liverpool by 21 to 13, that simple statistic encapsulates this defeat.

We were dismayed and astounded that Coleman did not replace Gueye until just twenty minutes from the end. We are unstinting in our support of David Moyes, but on this occasion he was asleep at the switch. Maybe he had allowed himself to become as mesmerised as his players by the myth that this expensively assembled Liverpool team has anything to offer – other than the darting, diving skills of Suarez. Indeed such was the Uruguayan’s frustration at being unable to shake off Johnny Heitinga that he reverted to his usual default setting; try to get your marker sent off. And why not, after all it worked with Jack Rodwell. Had Gueye been withdrawn at half-time in favour of Coleman (or even Anichebe) and Osman switched to the left, the Irishman could have perhaps played himself into form and Baines would have been freed to show his natural attacking game. 

That said there is one man who would have won this game for Everton but he was sitting 6,000 miles away glued to his TV, his name; Landon Donovan. Had he been playing the Blues would have won this game at a canter; imagine how he would have dissected the lumbering 6’ 3 inch Agger, systematically demolishing his game and providing a stream of inviting balls into the area for Jelavic.

The bottom line though is that players and management alike must share responsibility for this defeat. The players appeared to have been neutered of their attacking instincts, hesitant and timorous, where they should have been aggressive and strong. Their focus seemed to be entirely on worrying about and countering the imagined threat of the opposition. Little surprise then that when Liverpool finally woke up to the fact that Everton were anxious, had ceded territorial advantage and were playing too deep, their confidence grew. Everton’s crushing sense of inferiority was such that it didn’t matter in what order the goals were scored, Jelavic’s strike was effectively a consolation goal, even as it kissed the back of the net.

We will not discuss Sylvain Distin, other than to say that the man acted with the dignity and humility we would expect of an Everton player, as did his manager, who just as he did following the Cup Final defeat of 2009 made sure he shook the hand of every opposition player. Under these most trying of circumstances few men could have done that.    

LIVERPOOL (4-4-2): Jones; Johnson, Skrtel, Carragher, Agger; Henderson (Rodrigues 75), Spearing, Gerrard©, Downing (Bellamy 84); Suarez, Carroll

EVERTON (4-2-3-1): Howard; Neville©, Heitinga, Distin, Baines (Anichebe 88); Gibson, Fellaini; Osman, Cahill, Gueye (Coleman 68); Jelavic

Referee: Howard Webb                                                

Assistants: Peter Kirkup, Mike Mullarkey                      Fourth Official: Lee Mason

Attendance: 87,231