Everton win 3 - phew

Awful pun there, apologies.

Stoke 2 - 3 Everton

Well it, that could have been a pretty disasterous day for Everton. As it turned out it could scarcely have turned out better. Playing Stoke at the Britannia we raced out to a two goal lead playing pretty well. Segundo Castillo and Marouane Fellaini both made debuts in central midfield and dropped Anichebe back to play out wide...the most important addition was Timmy Cahill. The man is a legend.

With that line-up the team has a natural balance and poise that it just didn't have with other none-midfielders shoe-horned in there, it also frees up the rest of our squad to play in their more natural positions. Of the debutants Castillo impressed people more, he just did the basics of winning the ball and calmly distributing it. Sounds simple but every team needs one. Yakubu put us a head with one of those ridiculously simple goals that only he seemsto be able to score. Anichebe doubled our lead with a simple, glancing free-header. Interesting how Yak just stood there knowingly after he'd scored his goal and yet joyously mobbed young Victor after he'd scored his.

Anyway from there Everton got suckered by two Delap long throws...It's a pretty potent weapon but it's hardly earth-shattering but it caused chaos in our box and two goals cam from it. It's a worry how many we are conceding at the moment. We have always looked solid at the back but I suppose Lescott, Yobo & Jagielka haven't become bad players overnight, I just hope they get it together soon. So at 2-2 Everton could have gone to pieces. Both teams had cause to berate the ref. Stoke had a goal dissallowed after a tackle from behind robbed Yobo of the ball and we had a quite ludicrous decision go against us where the ref actually awarded us a penalty (rightly) and then changed his mind deciding somehow the offense had taken place 5 yards away outside the box. Pathetic. For arguing against this Moyes was sent to sit amongst the Stoke fans.

Anyway we need not have worried 'cause late on Tim Cahill just did what Time Cahill does....pops up in the box and scores when we need it most. God bless him. Great player and a great Evertonian. Moyes was seen to politely shake hands with the Stoke fans around him before marching over to the travelling bluenoses and celebrating with them....and that was that. It has lifted the gloom around the place a lot. The forthcoming game against Standard Liege will still be ridiculously tough but at least we should have shaken off our depression.