Everton 2-0 West Ham
In Romelu Lukaku Everton have an absolute gem of a striker. Only Diego Costa has more goals than Lukaku this season, and with ten of Everton's fourteen goals this season scored or assisted by Lukaku, he is not so much a vital cog in their attacking machinery so much as the only cog, with everything built around him.
That's not to say that Everton don't have other good players, because they do. Against West Ham Ross Barkley was excellent and Yannick Bolasie had a couple of moments of good quality. But what this game also demonstrated is how reliant Everton are on Lukaku to consistently provide the goods for his team. In the first half in particular, Everton looked largely toothless, with Lukaku their most vibrant and dangerous player. And although Barkley and Bolasie turned up after the break, both of them have been hit and miss this season, whilst Lukaku has routinely been top class.
The first goal was a bit of a shambles from West Ham's perspective. Adrian should have pushed a reasonably good effort from Seamus Coleman around the post, but instead pushed it back into the danger zone, where the tenacity of Bolasie came into play. Bolasie somehow got there ahead of Winston Reid to put the ball on a plate for Lukaku, who was less than six yards out and totally unmarked. How he'd been able to waltz into the six yard box completely unchallenged to pick up the pieces is exactly the question a furious Slaven Bilic will have been asking at full time, and the answer is that Kouyate in particular simply fell asleep, caught ball-watching.
Up until that point it had been a reasonably close game, with Everton shading the chances as Adrian made a top save to keep a deflected effect from the much improved Barkley. But whilst West Ham had played well up until that point, they looked devoid of ideas. Payet had had one or two moments, Lanzini had had one or two moments, but West Ham never looked like a cohesive forward unit, so much as a collective of individuals capable of moments of magic. The introduction of Zaza and Andre Ayew in the second half did nothing to improve their attacking output, they simply looked lost. And after Everton scored, it was one way traffic.
And Lukaku was at the heart of everything. He should have had a penalty, he was denied brilliantly by Adrian, and he got the assist for Everton's deserved second goal, chasing a slightly overhit ball into the channel from Barkley, cutting into the box and picking out the English midfielder with a stunning pass for Barkley to slam home.
And Barkley is surely a man who deserves praise as much as he has deserved the flack that he has been taking in recent weeks. Whilst Barkley has come under fire, yesterday he was truly excellent, and his influence was very much felt on the team. What he needs to do is turn out those sort of performances week in, week out, in order to secure his place in this Everton team, and possibly win his way back into the England squad.
For West Ham this was a seriously disappointing result, which derails their progress back up the league, leaving them at highest 16th and at most three points off relegation, depending on how Stoke and Swansea get on tonight. However, given that a win would have taken them into the top half of the table, it's early days yet, and the lower half of the table, as with the top half, is very congested.
And for Everton, it's a win that gets them back on track, keeping them three points clear of Manchester United in the battle for Europa League spots, and keeps them four points off the top four, although realistically that's a gap that they probably won't be able to close.
Southampton 0-2 Chelsea
The only man to have contributed to as many goals this season as Lukaku is Diego Costa, who added his eighth goal of the season to two assists to see off a spirited Southampton side. Southampton didn't do a whole lot wrong in truth. They made a couple of reasonably small mistakes whilst defending, but on both occasions they were punished. Moreover, whilst they dominated the ball, they were just unable to break down a Chelsea side that were compact off the ball and clinical on it.
This really was a perfect away performance from the Blues, as they sat back and soaked up the pressure, only to hit Southampton with devastating counter-attacks, to pick up their fourth win (and clean sheet) in a row, and prove that last week's 4-0 demolition of United was no fluke. Defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal saw me and many others argue that Chelsea were probably not good enough to challenge for the title, but they've surged back into the top four since then, answering their critics in emphatic style.
And no victory will be looked at more impressively than this one, as they surgically dismantled one of the best defences in the league, whilst simultaneously staying tight at the back under pressure from an in-form Saints front three of Redmond, Austin and Tadic.
Southampton really had no answer to Chelsea, and any defensive errors were snatched upon with aplomb. I said earlier this season that Chelsea struggled for creativity and relied heavily on Eden Hazard and Diego Costa. And whilst that remains true to an extent, Chelsea have now scored 21 goals this season, those two scoring 13 of them, and even if Chelsea are reliant on Hazard and Costa to get them goals, then they could certainly rely on worse players. In fact, you'd be hard pushed to find a better striker/attacking midfield duo in the Premier League, with only Aguero and De Bruyne making a case at Manchester City (although if you count Alexis Sanchez as a striker he and Mesut Ozil are one hell of a twosome).
And it was Hazard and Costa who scored the goals. The first was a lovely pass from Moses, but neither Romeu nor Davis tracked Hazard's run and realistically both should have prevented him getting a shot on goal, particularly when that shot was a stunning rifled finish under Fraser Forster. And likewise for the second goal, Southampton should have done more to close down Diego Costa just outside the box, but Costa still had no right to go and produce the stunning curling finish that he did to kill the game dead.
Southampton rarely threatened after that, with the best chance for Chelsea falling to Pedro during a goalmouth scramble that really should have ended up with the ball in the back of the net. Chelsea put in a perfect away performance, solid as a rock at the back and explosively destructive in attack. Since switching to three at the back they're now got a record of four played, four won, with eleven scored and none conceded. If they carry on in this form, then winning the league is definitely on the cards, given that only three teams have scored more goals and only two teams have conceded less.
As for Saints, this wasn't a disastrous result. They remain ninth having had a tough run so far this season and if they carry on the way that they've been playing, they should certainly finish in the top ten, probably the top eight, which given the caliber of teams in this season's Premier League, is no mean feat at all.
The Hard and Fast Section
- Lewis Hamilton won. The gap is 19. Two to play.
- But Seb Vettel suffered a bad, sweary day. Poor form.
- Wiggins may be back. Emphasis on maybe.
- Djokovic claims he's ready to fight. Tasty.
No comments:
Post a Comment