Blue Watch: Season can't be allowed to fizzle out

Apr 17 2008 by Mark O'Brien, Liverpool Daily Post

Phil Neville in action (158)

EVERTON and Chelsea, who meet tonight at Goodison Park, seem to be watching their respective seasons tail off in parallel.

At the beginning of the month this bizarrely scheduled encounter looked like it could be key in determining both the title and the last Champions League spot. As it is though, the men from Stamford Bridge blew their chance of catching Manchester United on Monday night while Everton now seem to be doing their best to miss out on the UEFA Cup, never mind pushing Liverpool for fourth place.

Chelsea did look poor against Wigan; a pale shadow of the side that showed such ruthless efficiency against Everton over two legs of the Carling Cup semi-final.

All the talk is of how the players have no respect for the somewhat unfairly maligned Avram Grant and it was easy to believe that as they struggled to find any fluency against Steve Bruce’s men before conceding a late equaliser.

Liverpool must not be able to believe their luck – although everyone else can – at the prospect of facing the Londoners in the semi-final of the Champions League when they are clearly in some disarray.

In fairness the same should be said of Everton then, ahead of tonight’s game, but sadly recent performances have done little to suggest that they can raise themselves enough to upset even a dispirited Chelsea.

Normally the crowd can play a big part in big midweek games like this – as we saw against Fiorentina, for instance – but they need the players to give them something to respond to.

It’s all well and good having the likes of Phil Neville make bold statements every week about how we can still finish fourth, but it means very little when the team take to the field and look as unconvincing as they did at St Andrews at the weekend.

They were just lucky to have had Tim Howard in goal down in Birmingham or else they would have failed to take even the single point that could still prove vital in the final reckonings.

The American’s double save from Rahdi Jaidi and James McFadden was a breathtaking reminder of just what a great signing he has been for us. Indeed, David Moyes has in the past said that bringing another keeper, Nigel Martyn, to Goodison was the best piece of business he has ever done, but the £3million that he paid to take Howard from Manchester United increasingly looks like an absolute steal. Would you swap him for any of the keepers at Old Trafford now?

The fact that Howard is one game away from equalling the incomparable Neville Southall’s record for clean sheets in one season says everything about his form and the contribution he has made to an excellent season for the team.

Because it really must be remembered that despite this late slump – which has to be attributed to injuries to the creative players around whom the whole surge to fourth was based – this has been a cracking campaign. When Tim Cahill, Mikel Arteta, Steven Pienaar and Leon Osman are all fit then Everton look unstoppable. Unfortunately they’ve all suffered in the last month or so and so we’ve lost ground.

Some additions to the squad are necessary in the summer then, something we’ve always known anyway, but we shouldn’t let recent form make us believe that there’s a need for wholesale changes across the board.

A couple of shrewd signings of Howard's quality, added to a squad that has demonstrated that it is talented across much of the season, could make a big difference to Everton's overall quality next time out.

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