Well as predicted in my article covering Everton’s next 5 league games (four now), a nervy performance against an awful QPR side brought the 3 points back to Goodison for only the 5th time in 16 league games.
For the first 25 minutes not a great deal happened before Barkley’s quality strike. Taking a one-two off Lukaku he took on the QPR defence and struck a left-foot shot into the top corner. Sky took great pleasure in there being a slight deflection but that was them all over.
The second goal from Mirallas took a massive deflection a few minutes before half time and even the third was due to an error by QPR’s defence, and as far as I saw was going wide after a save by the keeper before bouncing in off a defender. It was hilarious to see us getting some luck for once and the Sky pundits getting more and more irritated by this. Especially Martin Tyler, obviously.
Overall though it was more of the same – pace was back in the team but the passing at time was poor and Baines, one of the focal points of the team last year, was anonymous as he has been for weeks. Good job that Besic and Barkley did well in the middle with Barry and McCarthy out.
When QPR pulled one back (what a surprise – Zamora hadn’t scored since the play-off final) we really looked quite panicky and if there had been another ten minutes of play it might have got even nervier. Although by then (at last) Kone and Eto’o had come on.
Of course Martinez could have done that a lot earlier, and his subs are still being questioned by the Everton faithful. What all the boo-ing was about when we were 3-1 up was a bit daft though.
The one thing that took the shine off the evening was the obvious injury to one of our better players – the unwritten Everton rule that whoever is playing well gets injured hit him hard. Hopefully his ankle injury won’t mean he’s out for too long. He seemed confident he’d be okay. In Arsenal terms that’s about 8 weeks out isn’t it?