Injuries to key players are a problem faced by every manager but if Everton’s David Moyes is currently suffering more than most in that respect, the Glaswegian’s self-acknowledged failure to fashion a winning combination from those left standing is beginning to become serious. Defeat at the hands of a resurgent Hull City last night means his team have now won only one of their last eight matches, a run which has sent them slipping towards the relegation zone.
To emphasise the growing danger of their position, the Merseysiders now find themselves level on points with the Tigers, and as Moyes acknowledged, with Phil Neville, Mikel Arteta, Phil Jagielka, Victor Anichebe and James Vaughan all unlikely to be available before January, there are few signs of the injury situation improving.
The key for City was to maintain the momentum created in their previous two games, in which they beat Stoke and came back from two down to draw with West Ham. Had Everton exploited either of two poor early errors on the part of City centre-half Kamil Zayatte, the visitors would have gone a long way towards quietening a raucous full house, but they were still looking sufficiently assured for Hull’s opening goal in the ninth minute to be unexpected.
Stephen Hunt’s cross from the left, made into a high looping delivery by a deflection off the head of Joseph Yobo, should have been easily dealt with but Sylvain Distin and Leighton Baines got in each other’s way and the ball sat up nicely for Jozy Altidore. The young American cracked his shot hard and though his compatriot Tim Howard made a fine block, the rebound fell kindly for Hunt to drive into the empty net. Now it was all City.
Geovanni tested Howard from distance, and it was the Brazilian who won the free-kick which Andy Dawson curled superbly beyond the diving Howard in the 20th minute. Distin, up for a corner, flashed a free header over the bar but incredibly Hull went three up before the half hour. If there was an element of good fortune about the way Dean Marney’s side-footed shot was deflected by Tim Cahill’s block, wrong-footing Howard in the process, Moyes must have been furious about the manner in which Yobo gave Hunt a second chance to make the cross. He would have been even angrier had Altidore, given far too much time and room, shot inside instead of just outside Howard’s left-hand post shortly before half-time. Never one for theatrics, however, Moyes sat quietly until the interval and gave Everton a chance to reorganise, though his only immediate reaction was to go to five in midfield, replacing the ineffective Ayegbeni Yakubu with Dan Gosling.
They badly needed a break and got one almost immediately. John Heitinga’s low cross should have been cleared by Zayatte but just as in the opening minutes of the match, he miskicked comically. At least, it would have been comical if the ball had not spun up and beyond his goalkeeper Matt Duke into his own net. Given City’s mini-revival had been sparked by the return to fitness of Jimmy Bullard, and the midfielder was left out last night on the basis Phil Brown did not want him to play two games in four days at a relatively early stage in his comeback, the Tigers might have started to get nervous and defensive.
They kept going forward and shortly after the hour they paid the penalty when a three-on-two attack broke down. Cahill’s lobbed pass found Louis Saha running between Anthony Gardner and Zayatte, and Zayatte’s challenge was sufficiently clumsy to make the penalty an easy decision. Saha converted his eighth goal in 10 league appearances this season.
The next 30 minutes were torture for the Hull fans. For all that Brown urged his team to get forward they inevitably began to sit back, inviting Everton to get the ball into the danger area, but only in the last minute of injury time did they really threaten, when Baines hit a free-kick into the Hull wall.
Premier LeagueHull CityEvertonPhil BrownDavid Moyesguardian.co.uk
