Chelsea 1 - 1 Everton

Everton made it four consecutive score draws on the road with a well-deserved 1-1 at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. David Moyes’ team showed impressive resolve and composure to come back from a goal behind after Nicolas Anelka did his best to get Tim Howard sent off by running into the American goalkeeper and leaving the referee with no other option than to award a penalty. The whole incident could have been easily avoided had Phil Neville not played a truly ridiculous back pass that Anelka easily read and intercepted.

Luckily the ref, whose name I forget, sort of acknowledged that Anelka purposely ran into Howard and decided not to produce a red card. Didier Drogba, who is still looking very subdued after his recovery from malaria, smashed the resulting spot kick beyond Howard for 1-0. At this point Neville endeavoured to make up for his error by demonstrating his full repertoire of clapping and pointing.

Marouane Fellaini and Jack Rodwell managed to dominate the midfield to such a degree that Chelsea were unable to get a grip of the game and add to their advantage. Chelsea don’t move as seamlessly between midfield and attack without Frank Lampard pulling the strings, and as the second-half developed Everton looked by far the most dangerous team.

As always it was Steven Pienaar and Leighton Baines who provided the craft and guile in the final third, and it was a through pass from Pienaar that led to the game’s most controversial incident. The South African played a clever ball behind the Chelsea defence for Tim Cahill to run onto, and after avoiding a classic John Terry attempt at dragging down, Cahill slid fairly for a ball with goalkeeper Petr Cech. Despite pulling out at the last second, Cahill managed to graze Cech with his studs and cause a small cut over the Czech’s eyebrow and accidentally pressing his ‘off’ switch.

Chelsea seem to think that because Cech got his head stoved in by Steven Hunt four years ago that no one is allowed to go near him now, so predictably Terry acted like a knobhead and got in Cahill’s face. The obligatory scuffle ensued, with lots of pushing and postulating but no actual violence, while the Chelsea medical staff set about rebooting the big goalkeeper. After seven minutes of frantically pressing ctrl, alt and delete they managed to get Cech back on his feet and avoided having to bring on one of their comedy reserves.

Everton continued to push forward and finally grabbed the equaliser on 86 minutes. Baines again showed his quality by picking the ball up on the half-way line, accelerating past four Chelsea players and swinging a beautiful cross into the box. Cahill and substitute Jermaine Beckford split Terry, and Cahill headed the ball across the Chelsea captain for Beckford to nod beyond the flailing Cech.

There was seven minutes of injury time in which both teams were positive but neither really created any more chances. Both sides could claim to have dominated a half, but Everton wouldn’t have been flattered by three points.