Everton 1-0 Manchester United
In the last kick off from the the opening round of Premier League fixtures we got a notable upset as Everton managed to defeat the highly favoured Manchester United 1-0, a victory that was well deserved by the Toffees.
Despite much of the pre-game talk being about Robin Van Persie the Dutchman merely started on the bench as the talking point went from Van Persie to United dishevelled looking defence that was ravaged by injuries to 4 centre backs, leaving them with a make shift defence that included Michael Carrick and Antonio Valencia. Whilst this should have worried United fans they would have assumed an attacking line up that included new signing Shinji Kagawa, Wayne Rooney, Danny Wellbeck, Nani and Paul Scholes would have managed to outscore Everton. Instead of being about the strong United attack it was a man in blue who stole the headlines as Belgium's wacky haired Marouane Fellaini dominated the game.
The opening half saw Everton dominate the match with Fellaini in the middle of everything and the Toffee's could easily have been 3 or 4 up by the break with David De Gea managing to keep United in the match with a number of tremendous saves. Whilst David Moyes would have felt happy at half time with his teams domination of the play he may have worried it was going to be "just one of them days" where nothing goes in.
It took only 12 minutes of the second half for Everton to do what they failed to do in the opening 45 minutes as Fellaini managed to out muscle Michael Carrick in the penalty area and thunder a header past De Gea who really stood no chance of stopping it.
The goal seemed to completely change the form of the game as Everton went defensive and allowed United to come at them, and attack United did earning 6 corners in the half, though they failed to really do anything with them. Every corner United had was cleared with ease by the rock solid Everton defense who rarely allowed United the space, or time they needed on the ball to open a good chance. Despite the impressiveness of the Everton defense Shinji Kagawa was given a chance to shine as he became more and more involved in the game and after linking up with Van Persie, a second half substitution, the Japanese player came close forcing Tim Howard to make a rare save.
Whilst Fellaini was the clear man of the match the whole Everton were impressive with Sylvian Distin, Phil Jagielka and Tony Hibbert being rocks at the back who repeatedly thwarted United. In fact Everton's "worst" performance may well have been by Tim Howard who had very little to do due to how excellent Everton's out field players were. If Everton can keep this standard of play up they may well challenge for a European place at the end of the year. Worryingly though Nikica Jelavic did appear to have a niggling injury when he was subbed off late and Distin also looked in pain before the final whilst, if either of those men are absent for the next fixture Everton fans should be worried.
It's obvious that David Moyes will be estatic at the result though Alex Ferguson will be more than a little bit annoyed. Whilst United did have a bit of a makeshift back four they had the players on the pitch that would have been expected to beat Everton, sadly a number of them were poor. Tom Cleverly, Nani and Scholes were all sub standard and allowed Everton to boss the Midfield, whilst Wellbeck failed to shine, Rooney looked to be lacking fitness and the defence was also poor with Carrick being to blame for the goal. However Ferguson will take some positives from the match, Kagawa looks like an excellent signing and despite being quiet in the first half he really came alive in the second and the late display by Robin Van Persie was promising whilst David De Gea looked sensational.
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