Everton drops important points

By: 21 | February 22nd, 2009

Seemingly beaten and the subject of relegation talk, Newcastle handed Everton a tough nil draw even though they played a man down after Kevin Nolan was red-carded for a disgusting hatchet job on Victor Anichebe.

The match wasn’t even five minutes in when Mikel Arteta was stretchered off as injured his knee in a challenge of Danish international Peter Løvenkrands. Segundo Castillo came in for the injured midfielder and fit in seamlessly. Near the twentieth minute Joseph Yobo’s header was pulled off the line by Sébastien Bassong and later, young Jack Rodwell came close. Slowly Newcastle pulled out of its shell and started to threaten however Tim Howard was on form held attempts back. Just before the break Kevin Nolan was done for the day with a two footed challenge Victor Anichebe, who had to be replaced by a less-than healthy Marouane Fellaini at the restart. The Toffees dominated the run of play but were unable to find a route through the final third and the match ended deadlocked without a score.

Following the match, David Moyes talked of the injuries and Kevin Nolan’s despictable challenge:

“It’s been a bit of disappointing day because of the result, because of not getting the three points and because of the injuries to Mikel Arteta and Victor Anichebe.

“Mikel has gone back for a scan and we’ll know maybe more tonight (Sunday) – but we’re not expecting good news, that’s for sure.

“Injuries are part of football but what we’ll miss is that we don’t have the squad or numbers to do it.

“You’ve got to have the numbers, and that’s where our problem comes.

“I just felt we didn’t really flow, we didn’t have the rhythm we’ve had in recent weeks and what I’ve come to expect. I felt we were patching up, hoping to get the victory. But we didn’t have the fluency we’ve had in recent weeks and months.”

Regarding Kevin Nolan:

“It was a definite red card. I’ve not known Kevin to be that type of player, so we’ve got to take that and move on. I don’t think players meaningfully go out to hurt anybody, but it was undoubtedly a bad tackle and it was rightly given a red card.”