Albion fans will have travelled to Liverpool with great trepidation and perhaps expecting to come away having extended the run of games without a win to six. Well history told us that the Baggies haven’t won at Goodison Park since 1979 so a fruitless afternoon was set to be the order of the day. Well how wrong that assumption was. Albion thrashed Everton and deservedly came away with all three points. All this after having to make a change in defence with Scharner replacing Pablo who has been struggling with a knee injury and Dorrans coming into midfield for a rare start. In a surprise Chris Brunt returned to the team after struggling with a hamstring injury all week.
Following a slow start for Albion they burst into life first with a Scharner bullet header from a Chris Brunt corner and then a magnificent free kick from the Irishman doubled the lead. If there has been a more consistent performer in the Premier League than Brunt I would like to meet him. It could have been three nil had referee Lee Mason spotted Steven Pienaar’s handball in the penalty area shortly afterwards but instead it was Everton who were next to strike with a Tim Cahill header from a corner that saw them go into the break just one adrift of the Baggies. The second half was incident packed and saw Mikel Arteta sent off for a stamp on Jara. The Toffees have accused Jara of elbowing Baines and then jumping in two footed on Arteta. However, Lee Mason was less than five yards away on each occasion and he didn’t see anything wrong with either challenge. The first challenge, a supposed elbow, looked nothing more than a player trying to power himself upwards but there is no doubting he caught Baines as the Everton man challenged. The second tackle was not two footed and Jara took the ball with a committed challenge that was not dirty, however, the Everton man’s reaction was disgraceful as he made every effort to try to hurt the Chilean international and quite rightly he was asked to leave the field. From then on Everton tried to push forward for an equaliser despite their man disadvantage but Carson and Tamas proved too good for Beckford who found himself in numerous good positions. One chance that Beckford did blaze over would surely have been called for offside even if he had got it on target and that was perhaps his best chance of the game. In truth though the Baggies were strolling around waiting for the right time to land the killer blow and that moment came for substitute Somen Tchoyi who curled a beautiful right footed shot past Tim Howard. Youssef Mulumbu added a fourth towards the end following a superb one two with Morrison, although Distin did get the last touch but it was going in anyway. Sadly for Mulumbu he was booked for an exuberant celebration with the fans which was swiftly followed by another yellow for a trip on Beckford.
The Baggies appear to be back on track and they will now hope to build on this with a home win against Newcastle but that won’t be easy and the energy levels will need to remain high to achieve a result.
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