Beware the Boogiemen

At the beginning of every season, when the fixtures first come to the surface, we all scramble around looking for the usual; When’s the derby? When’s United? When’s City? Asks Jake Mills in his new column for NSNO.

You look for your first and last games of the season, for the easy and tricky clump of matches but also, you look for you boogie team. Chelsea fans will do this too, and undoubtedly, they’ll be looking out for Everton, who along the years have developed into a boogie team for them. At the start of the season, with Chelsea firm favourites to win the league, they must have been far from relishing the prospect of travelling to Goodison Park for their last game, potentially to win the league. Lucky for them, they’d already lost the title.

Everton have been up and down all season. One minute they are showing sheer class, the next looking like a relegation side, but Sunday showed just why the ‘R’ word should be far from any Evertonian’s lips. The togetherness of the team as well as several individual performances shone through, outclassing some of the ‘worlds best’ players. Ok, it was far from the best game that’s been played at Goodison Park and was guilty of falling flat a few times but once again, a spark on the field and an angry crowd with their backs up show just how hard a trip to Goodison can be.

After hitting the bar, having a penalty shout turned down and a disallowed goal for Chelsea, the sending off of Seamus Coleman turned the game, surprisingly, in Everton’s favour. The team and the crowd felt it was the wrong decision, the play acting (and it was play acting) from Mikel and friends fuelled the crowd’s anger even more and Everton did what they do best, they won it the hard way. Whether it was a sending off or not is still under question. It probably was a yellow card, but is there a difference between a yellow card offence if it’s the first or second card? Sometimes I’d like to think so, maybe a little bit of common sense here and there, but with the laws of the game, it’s hard to argue. Without a doubt though, the Chelsea players got Seamus Coleman sent off, not the linesman, not the referee, not particularly the challenge. It was the unsportsmanship of the players which served in their favour at the time but ultimately lost them the game.

Three of the Everton back four on Sunday have been in contention for player of the season throughout the campaign, with Distin and Baines being two of my own personal picks, so it would have been nice to see them having a bit more of a task to do in the match. It was a shame not to see Torres start, or even play for Chelsea (What? He did?!).

Osman again was a stand out player and even Arteta looked to be playing with a bit more quality and confidence. The absence of the captain was noticeable, his leadership and presence in the team is priceless and his role behind Coleman is something which goes almost completely unnoticed. His presence there is vital for Seamus, it allows him the comfort and confidence to get forward safe in the knowledge that he has excellent cover and experience behind him. With Phil’s war cry and screeching advice constantly ringing in the ear of Coleman, Neville can take a lot of credit and pride in Coleman’s awards and nominations this year. A true captain, professional and undoubtably a manager in the making.

As for THAT goal, as it will now be known, well, what is there to say other than ‘Wow’. At the time I knew it was good, as did everyone when Goodison exploded, but I didn’t realise just how good it was. Picking it up in your own area and running solely to the opposite end, granted with a bit of luck, and finishing with the coolness and technique that he did, proves just how good Beckford can be, not that Chelsea need reminding. Yes he’s been accused of being lazy at times and I sometimes find that hard to argue with, but lets not forget, this is his first season, he has come up two leagues, we got him for free and he has scored 10 goals in the league.

That is some achievement for Becks and he deserves his plaudits, hopefully it will lead to bigger and better things in seasons to come and he will have someone new to play off (that’s another topic for another time!).

Chelsea certainly didn’t look like title contenders, maybe because it was the last game of the season with nothing to play for, but Everton played with the pride and spirit they are famous for, giving a meaningless, end of season game a bit of life and excitement, sending everyone home with a smile.

And so that was that, as we watched Leon Osman’s son run around the pitch a million times (just like his dad, about the same height as him too), we clapped off a team who have given us a roller coaster of a season. There’s been ups and downs, tears of happiness and sorrow, frustration and anger, calls for heads and calls for money, fallings out and name calling, but, we are all still here, we are all Evertonians and we will always do everything we can to get the best for our club. This team we have is a very good team and have proven at times just why we are good enough to be in Europe. This manager we have is a great manager and has proven just how valuable he is to Everton. It’s very easy to be negative about things at times but we need to write this season off and learn from our mistakes. Here’s to next season, let’s hope it’s better than the last.