Everton 1, Aston Villa 1: Mat Kendrick's big match verdict
Nov 2 2009 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Mail
ALL football clubs are equal – but some are more equal than others.
So, when even the referee is getting in on the act to level things up, the football fates seem destined to keep Villa and Everton as Premier League peers on a par.
They were both below-par on Saturday, when again there was little to choose between the Scousers and the Brummies, on an afternoon where quality largely made way for equality in a war of attrition.
And Lee Probert’s decision to cancel out Diniyar Bilyaletdinov’s last-gasp sending-off by red-carding Carlos Cuellar moments later meant the rivals ended with the same number of players as well as goals.
Never mind Everton’s traditional pre-match music of the theme from Z Cars, whenever they face Villa the teams should run out to Rockin’ All Over the World because this pair seem determined to maintain the Status Quo.
Don’t be fooled by Everton’s stuttering start and Villa’s solid start leaving the perennial battlers for fifth place eight points and six places apart. The duo are still much closer than that.
The gap was even bigger at this stage last season – incidentally, a campaign in which they shared a victory each and a draw in league and cup – yet still there was only a point separating them in the final reckoning.
Villa took 20 points from their first 10 games last term compared to Everton’s 12 from 10; at the same juncture in the current campaign, the West Midlanders have 18 with the Merseysiders again on 12.
It was role reversal during the run-in as David Moyes’s men picked up 18 points in the last 10 games, against Martin O’Neill’s team’s 10 in 10 to gobble up the ground and again clinch the best-of-the-rest fifth spot.
Conversely, it was Everton who started brightly on Saturday and Villa who improved later on in the archetypal game of two (evenly-matched) halves.
Even the goals came together. Everton’s moments before the interval; Villa’s moments after it.
Sylvain Distin, a former Villa target and Richard Dunne, an ex-Evertonian, were unable to prevent the strikes.
Dunne was caught up in the confusion for the opener on the stroke of half-time when none of Villa’s previously-solid backline covered themselves in glory.
The Irish defender was left exposed by Stephen Warnock’s failure to keep tabs on Tim Cahill and when Dunne hesitated, the Australian attacker hooked the ball into the box.
