Could we get a bit of perspective on this?
You want to know what happened at Goodison? What happened was very simple. The stats of nine shots (as against their three, all on target) and nine corners with no product whatsoever tell us most of what we need to know. [These do not correspond to the BBC website. They were what were being given on the City OS matchday page. Either way, it's the same point].
The minor miracle that we’ve been living through for the past four weeks had to come to an end at some point. Completely deprived of our strike force, and our captain (also recognised, incidentally, as one of the three or four best central defenders in the world), for about a month, not only did we not capitulate to our main rival — as we had done by this point in 2012-13 — but we caught them up. That is, I repeat, of the order of a minor miracle. It so happens that that strike force, and that defender, are coming back at exactly the right time. Add to that the addition of Bony after the ACON.
We got a point away, we should have got more, but in the scheme of things, it was far less annoying than the Burnley result at our place; our rivals took the three points at home. All this is pretty much par for the course. Certainly, title winners win virtually all their home games, and a fair proportion of their away games. In case anybody’s stopped noticing, that’s exactly what we’ve done over the past twelve or so matches, in all competitions.
No question: the next two games are huge. We need four points from those two games to keep the pressure on. Sergio and Vinny back, Edin waiting in the wings, everybody finally — finally! — fit, that is definitely doable, and I am expecting nothing less. Less than that would, realistically, start to see the title slipping away. Not gone, but slipping.
I am not minimising the problems on show at Goodison. Joe pulls out two or three top drawer saves, and then makes one of his stupid errors of judgement. Goal. The one player that I was certain would bloom this season — Jovetic — well, reluctantly, I have to admit, it just isn’t happening. He’s had plenty of playing time, the overall impression is that he’s busy, but to no great effect. There were times when Lukaku seemed to be owning Mangala. But their goal did not come from that. It came from a set piece, and that has happened just a bit too often to us over the past couple of seasons. Navas has done an awful lot of good work as a defender, but I thought he was supposed to be an attacking player? He has scored once, and once only, this season, in the COC against Wednesday.
But the build up play was good, as you would expect from a midfield of this quality. What was lacking was up front . The ‘front’ is now in harness. Two huge games — four points to stay in the mix. Keep the faith.
