FA Cup Heartbreak

There’s nothing like a bit of FA Cup heartbreak to get you writing again!

Well where do I even start?

What an explosive game. It had everything a proper cup tie needs, a red card, scuffles between your own players (LOL West Ham), a penalty shoot out, spectacular saves, a beauty of a free kick, a perfect tribute and so much more.

Despite the fact I’m gutted and it feels more like we lost the FA Cup final, not the third round, I feel more inspired that this injury stricken Everton team are starting to turn it around. The passion and fight they showed last night was tremendous.

It only seems right I start with Joel Robles and his amazing performance. When I learned that Tim Howard was injured, I wanted to cry, we had a shaky sub goalie in Robles with not a lot of match experience for us. But I hold my hands up, he has improved with every game he has played and last night his one handed saves kept us in the game.

He was calm and organised throughout the game and we didn’t see the usual flappy performance he sometimes displays. It was such a cruel, cruel way for him to end the night. A ‘hammer-blow’ as the BT pundits kept calling it, (don’t get me started on them!) for Robles to be our man of the match to then be the man to end our cup run. I must admit I didn’t have much hope that his spot kick was going to go in and then for him to have to stand in goal and face that Adrian, I just knew that was it. We wouldn’t have even made it past the 90 minutes without Robles so his head should be held very high.

As biased as this may sound, I really believe we were the better side and deserved to win that tie. I’d like to move on to the referee, thoughts?

McGeady’s sending off was fair and didn’t really do us much harm apart from it leaving the final spot kick to Robles, but how many of us think McGeady would have scored it anyway?! One of my contacts has suggested that the FA should review his sending off, in the hope he might get a three match ban, rather than just one. (He’s not a fan of McGeady’s.)

At least the sending off urged Martinez to bring Mirallas on, something he should have done anyway, though I appreciate he isn’t quite match fit. The ref for me scores about 5/10. He – as Bobby said post match – wasn’t consistent enough.

“My only complaint is you want a bit of consistency with the physicality West Ham were playing with, the yellow cards weren’t shared out in the same manner.”

How was Andy Carroll not booked for persistent fouling? Nolan was booked for them and that was it, they were nasty, time wasters, shirt pullers, elbowers, fouling, sneaky players and deserved to have been in the ref’s book more than we were. The final straw was when he had a word with Robles while holding a yellow card, did he not see this?!

Picture from Daily Mail.

Adrian was awful! Practically screaming at Naisy!

Moving on, Phil Jagielka was everything we needed him to be last night. A stalwart in defence, strong and defiant. He has also been shaky of late but showed no hint of a wobble last night. The same can’t be said for John Stones, but he is young and still has much to learn and is already so much better than he’s been.

Lukaku would have undoubtedly had a lot on his mind following the sudden and tragic death of Junior Malanda, but like a true professional he powered on. He got his goal and fittingly made an emotional tribute to Malanda which nearly had me in tears.

Lukaku was proving his worth, he was all over the pitch, hungry for the ball, playing some really fancy football and then that goal! Bravo!

I couldn’t believe it when we went up 2-1, I thought that was it, we’ve got this. The roar of the travelling 3,000 fans was heart-warming! The skill Mirallas showed in the run-up to that goal was breath-taking, world class skill! To run and weave in and out of about 4 West Ham players showed the truly amazing player he is.

But alas, the football God’s wanted a penalty shoot out and my word they got one. I was beside myself, literally could not cope, I was pacing around the room, sat on the floor, clutching a cushion to my face, jumping for joy, yelling at the television and then finally sat with my head in my hands.

I wonder if you can work out which parts of the match my sister and I are talking about here…

So it wasn’t to be this time and despite thinking we’d hit ‘the turning point’ already this season, I finally think last night may just be it…

I’ll leave you with my favourite part of the match.

Until next time Blues…

 

 

Post Match Musings – Manchester United

Following Wednesday’s defeat to Crystal Palace, I was nervous as to how we would respond against Manchester United. Arsenal had done us no favours by beating both of their opponents since they played us, so we had to win to keep the pressure on them for 4th spot.

It was surprising to see goal keeper Tim Howard named captain. While he has been a constant outstanding player for us this season and deserves an accolade of that proportion, I think it is difficult to have a goal keeper in that role, when he is bound to the goal area, as often the captain needs to step in and be near the centre of the action. There was an incident early on that meant Distin ended up having to step in and have a word with the ref, whereas as captain, it should have been Howard.

In the opening stages of the first half, I think it was pretty even, United had a lot of the possession, but didn’t find a way through our defence. Our midfield however seemed to have big gaps, they needed to push up a lot more. There is a fine line between midfielders keeping a defensive role and pushing forward to play in the shots to attacking players and I think we weren’t quite getting it right to begin with.

I was astounded to see Clattenburg give us a penalty! Never thought I’d see that happen! Deservingly so however, as we had quite a few penalty shouts leading up to the one which was given, and it gave us the break through we needed. Baines was as always, calm in the face of goal, and netted the penalty, carrying on his 100% record.

 

Our second goal came just before half time on 43 minutes. Seamus Coleman had been causing the United defence all sorts of problems all half and he continued to do so leading up to the second goal, when his swinging ball found the feet of Kevin Mirallas to knock the ball home.

At the end of the half, we noticed Sylvain Distin clutching his hamstring, not a good sign, he had been incredible in the first half and the thought of him being substituted with Alcaraz was making us all rather nervous. This was confirmed when we saw him warming up during half time. However my somewhat negative opinions of him were shattered within minutes. He, in my opinion, was amazing. Tall and strong, he won the headers, cleared the ball calmly and even played a pivotal role upfront and came close to scoring on a number of occasions. He’s got a mean left foot on him too!

Lukaku did well in the game, he seemed to be winning more and more headers, it doesn’t take a genius to work out why – his new coach? None other than Duncan Ferguson! So he must be sharing some of his tricks! I felt bad for the Rom, he really deserved a goal, and had so many opportunities to score but it just wasn’t his day.

Ross Barkley seemed to struggle playing on the left, he was replaced by Leon Osman with 20 minutes to go. He made a careless foul leading up to his replacement, earning him a yellow card. There was a shirt pull and no need for it, I think it shows while he is an outstanding talent who will go far, he still has a lot to learn in certain aspects of his game.

The closing stages of the game were nervy, United were pressing a lot, but the whole team were back and kept out any threat of goal! It was a great performance and Martinez got it bang on again.

The atmosphere was electric throughout and I know I certainly went home with a sore throat, but a happy heart!!

The race for 4th spot may no longer be in our hands, but we’re certainly not going without a fight!

 

Until next time Blues…