AEK Athens 0 Everton 1
Howard
Coleman Hibbert Distin Baines
Gosling Fellaini Pienaar Bilyaletdinov
Cahill
Jo
First Half
Howard
Coleman Hibbert Distin Baines
Gosling Fellaini Pienaar Bilyaletdinov
Cahill
Jo
First Half
The match started in heavy rain in the former Country known as Sunny Greece. In a vast almost empty Olympic Stadium. A bright opening from Everton resulted in an opening goal on 6minutes.A long ball up, a great flick on from Cahill and Jo took it down and slid a nice ball into Bilyaletdinovs path who smashed a great left foot shot into the roof of the net from a difficult angle. A great start from the boys.
2 minutes and it was same old, same old, Gosling went down with nobody near and appeared to have injured his knee, young Jose Baxter came on in his place.
Everton where playing with Pienaar and Fellaini sitting with Cahill supporting the lone striker Jo. Who was doing some decent hold up play. Everton where having a lot of the ball, but did look shaky at the back, mainly down to a shocking pitch and Distin clearly wasnt happy. This resulted in another change after 17mins when Shane Duffy came on to make his debut.
Moyes was barking orders on the touchline and Everton where playing some nice football and a very difficult pitch, which was making players from both sides slip, fall and everybody appeared to be picking up knocks from both sides. But the Everton fans where in full voice with the game starting to go end to end and very scrappy. Both teams where only having longish shots and the half finished with Jo leading the line well and Everton fully in control.
Second Half
So the 2nd half started and it was all AEK, with Everton having the odd break forward. One of which after some nice work from Cahill, Jo showed some poor control and the chance was gone.
Then the game went back to how you would imagine on the pitch it was played, a little bit scrappy with both teams struggling to get any real decent attacks going. And poor Howard got booked for time wasting which the resulting booking and retaking of the goal kick wasted more time than anything else, stupid ref, just stupid.
Everton then started to sit a little deeper and AEK had a shot which just whizzed past the post, followed by Jo having one at the other end which was tipped round the post by the Keeper, but no corner given. That was pretty much Jo's last action as on 70minutes he went down holding his knee and it was time for the Yak Attack.
It was then backs to the wall for Everton with Yak looking very heavy footed and not holding the ball up at all. Fellaini mistimed a tackle for once and allowed AEK to break with resulted in Baxter clearing off the line. And also Hibbert making a fine clearance and also Duffy.
In a rare attack Fellaini made the Keeper work with a decent header from a corner. The rain again appeared to fall and the pitch was really heavy and the players where all starting to visibly tire. But Pienaar still had a bit left in the tank to break free on a nice run which sadly came to nothing.
Yak holding up play was really bad and he couldnt get his foot on anything and we sat very deep but stopped anything and everything that came at us. Coleman made a tackle in the box that at first glance looked like a pen to me, but replays showed he played at least some of the ball. Also in the last minute of normal time Fellaini made an outstanding tackle on the edge of the area to again stop another attack. The whistle blew and it was all over.
An excellent showing from a very young side in crappy conditions, everybody put in a real shift and it was a hard fought victory which should give the whole Club a much needed boost. I thought everybody was excellent and I thought Fellaini and Pienaar controlled the game and got some wonderful support from everybody around them.
Ratings
Howard - 7 -: Didnt look comfortable with those long shots on a very poor pitch, but did most things well.
Coleman - 8 - : Great game from the young Irish lerd.
Baines - 7.5 - : Never stopped running, did everything he was asked to do well.
Distin - 6 - : Didnt look happy, clearly injured.
Hibbert - 8 - : We all know Hibbert can defend, no surprise he played well.
Gosling - 6 - : Was playing alright untill his injury.
Billy - 8 - : Took his goal well and was always full of running and showing for the ball.
Fellaini - 9.5 - : Great game from Fellaini, made the midfield his own.
Pienaar - 9.5 - : Sat deep, went forward, ran stuff.
Cahill - 8 - : Some nice headers and sat deeper second half, tireless again.
Jo - 8.5 - : Again led the line very well, some nice hold up play and put a real shift in once more.
Duffy - 7.5 - : Good debut, looked a bit shaky, but did well.
Baxter - 7 - : Didnt really get into the game, but played alright.
Yak - 6 - : Very bad and heavy footed.
