Kapo ball row didn't help us - Bruce

Nov 5 2007 By Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

THE ROW over returning the ball after Tim Cahill kicked it out to allow Garry O'Connor to get treatment didn't help Blues' cause, Steve Bruce said.

Everton players squared up to Olivier Kapo in the 88th minute as he didn't give it back to the goalkeeper or a defender, but sent it rolling over the touchline deep in Everton territory.

The Goodison Park crowd, muted up to then, were also incensed and Bruce pointed out that had Blues stopped play themselves, Everton wouldn't have been given such extra motivation at a critical time.

Mikael Forssell had possession just before Cahill and Bruce commented: "I said to Forssell that the right thing to do would have been to kick the ball out.

"What happened got their crowd up and at it, it got them jeering us.

"To be fair to Forssell, I don't think he saw that O'Connor was on the floor, and he carried on.

"But it's things like that we've got to learn from. If we had put it out, got the ball back, quietened them and got on with the game, it could have been a different story."

"The gaffer mentioned it afterwards," said goalkeeper Maik Taylor. "Mikael had the ball, he had his back to Garry and didn't see he was down. He tried to play on and they've put the ball out, which is fair play to them because there were only a few minutes left on the clock.

"Maybe Olly should have gone back to the goalkeeper. It certainly got the crowd up and everything else, but you can't really use that as an excuse.

"But it did give them a bit of a lift. They threw everything at us trying to get the win."