When a low cross that is apparently going now where, snidely goes in at the near post off an on-coming defender - that's a stroke of luck.
When Distan makes a defending blunder and Cameron Jerome shoots at point blank range past Howard's left hand post - that's a stroke of luck and when MoFro gives away a blatant penalty by pushing one of their players at a corner and Dowd and his officials miss it completely , now THAT is a stroke of luck !
Everton rode their luck today in large doses. Luckily in the fact that Birmingham just didn't click today at the right times. They relied too heavily on the 'long ball' and gambled by bringing on a tall lanky forward who failed to control the ball from under his feet on at least two scoring occasions.
Moyes trod a very thin line today between genius and village idiot. Playing his rigid 4-5-1, when the Yak was substituted, the gesturing of bewilderment of 'what do I do now?' from Cahill was there for all to see. Moving him into the spot light, when he is clearly not a centre forward and nursing an injured knee, was a huge gamble with such a slender lead to defend. With literally seconds to go and the anxiety at maximum amongst both players and fans a like, a bit of luck insured that a cross was delivered and Cahill was met unchallenged to bullet head it in. Now that was a stroke of luck .
We did enough to win the game, just - but the major problems are still there. Are strikers are not doing the business and the absence of Pienaar and our threat down the left hand side left us fairly one dimensional.
But, from small acorns.. I suppose