Scruffy Goodison Park skirmish could cost Everton dear

Sep 21 2007 by Chris Beesley, Liverpool Daily Post

LIKE chief executive Keith Wyness says: “There’s no plan B at Everton.” At Goodison they do things the hard way.

And if you try that and it doesn’t work well, you’ve guessed it, it’s the hard way again.

Everton, who were given an additional six minutes at the end to attack a screaming Gwladys Street, ran Metalist’s defence ragged last night, the visitors finished with nine men, Andrew Johnson twice had the ball in the net – although neither counted – as well as missing two penalties.

Yet still they could not win and they handed their opponents what could prove to be a priceless away goal amongst all the madness.

Cynics would say you could tell it was a big match night at Goodison because there was the inevitable ticketing problem which forced the kick-off in this UEFA Cup tie to be delayed by 30 minutes – and to make matters worse, despite a bright start, Everton ultimately couldn’t get it right on the pitch either.

The city of Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s far away eastern border region is most notable for being the site of several major battles during the Second World War between the Germans and the Red Army – and I’m not talking about Everton’s rivals across the park.

However, their football team are less famous and despite being the club where former Ipswich Town favourite Sergei Baltacha started his career, they went into this game as virtual unknowns due to a lack of any European experience. You’d be wrong to believe that Ukrainian clubs are mugs like Tottenham’s hopeless Cypriot visitors Anorthosis proved to be though.

It’s unlikely such spending power trickles down to football writers but while I think the cliché about visitors from behind the former Iron Curtain coming to our shores and stocking up on Levis might be somewhat out of date in the post-Communist era but you could certainly spot Metalist’s journalists in the Goodison Press Box.

Perhaps their iffy threads were a tribute to the 1980s when Ukrainians provided the backbone of a strong Soviet national side that reached the semi-finals of both the World Cup and European Championship?

Probably not, but Trinny and Susannah would have had their biggest challenge yet with some of these scribblers and I’m not even talking about the ones bedecked in bright yellow Metalist replica shirts and scarves.

For many years now, Evertonians have wished to be transported back to that golden decade when arguably their best ever side captured four major honours in the space of just three years.

Circumstances elsewhere dictated that Howard Kendall’s all-conquering team were left with a 100% record in what proved to be their only continental campaign but now at long last David Moyes’s charges have a chance to write some new pages in what so far is an unsatisfying short history of European football at Everton.

Having being granted qualification via a league position for the first time since the 1970s two years ago, Everton’s first European chapter under Moyes was short but far from sweet.

A shock 5-1 capitulation at the unlikely hands of Dinamo Bucharest in the UEFA Cup followed the cruellest of eliminations in the Champions League final qualifying round against Villarreal. But while Pierluigi Collina’s decision to disallow Duncan Ferguson’s goal in Spain for a supposed push that only he saw to this day remains one of the most perplexing refereeing decisions Everton have ever found themselves victims of, there can unfortunately be no complaints about Austrian referee Herr Stuchlik’s call on this occasion to force Andrew Johnson to re-take his penalty kick after teenage substitute Victor Anichebe allowed youthful enthusiasm to get the better of him as he encroached into the area before the initial strike was taken.

Forced into a battle of wits again with visiting custodian Oleksandr Goryainov, Johnson, who had blasted his first attempt straight down the middle, placed his second strike to the Metalist skipper’s left but he guessed correctly and saved.

Like all strikers, Johnson relies heavily on confidence and while for a few seconds all looked rosy after he had seemingly put his side 2-0 up, broken his duck for the season and ended a 12-match barren streak, his and Everton’s world were suddenly turned upside down by the eagle-eyed match official.

Yet still there was another chance for both Anichebe and Johnson to redeem themselves when the Nigerian was bundled to the ground by Oleksandr Babych who promptly saw red for his second booking for a second penalty and third chance for the former Crystal Palace man.

Having already been through an emotional rollercoaster minutes earlier and having hit the bottom, Lord knows where Johnson’s head was by the time he stepped up from 12 yards out for the third time. Maybe it was the selfishness a forward needs that convinced him to go to the line thrice, let’s hope it’s a great mental strength that he possesses to put his neck on the line when the chips are down but if you’ve seen it, you don’t need me to tell you that his last try was woeful and spookily reminiscent to Obafemi Martins’s spot-kick at the same end last season.

Let’s just hope that like the Newcastle number nine, Johnson can now recover from an initial lack of goals this season to register another impressive tally. But where do Johnson and Everton go from here?

Well literally to Kharkiv of course.

Metalist’s stadium has been earmarked for a major overhaul to host games at the 2012 European Championship finals but at the moment it seems like one of Europe’s least desirable destinations both on and off the pitch – especially when you go there following a 1-1 draw at home.

Everton only had to get through this one tie, to ensure they secured a place in the group stages and then you go into a five-team pool from which three of the sides progress to the next round.

Straightforward you’d have thought. Well until last night at least.

Fail at this hurdle though and that’s it. There really is no Plan B.