End of the run

The lad behind me said "this is the worst view in the worst ground in the Premiership. It's the hardest to get to - and I live here". Turns out he's in the armed forces, exiled from Liverpool and currently residing in the Southsea area. But his comment just about sums up Fratton Park and, due in part to Fratton being certainly one of the hardest grounds to get to (one road in, one road out), I missed the Everton highlight stood along with about 500 others waiting to squeeze through the turnstiles.

Once I did take my position things looked good. Although the two lads down Portsmouth's right flank were making decent inroads into the Everton half, most of Pompey's attacking play was disjointed. Then, from a corner that shouldn't have been given, Everton failed to clear the first ball properly, a second one was dropped into the area from where Glenn Johnson nodded across the box and Crouch piled in over the top of Lescott for the equalizer.

From that moment on, I wasn't overly confident Everton had the wit to break down the Portsmouth back line. I agree with some witnesses that Everton didn't really test Portsmouth, but that said, I thought Sol Campbell managed the threat of Saha and Jo comfortably even if he does look like he just feasts on growth hormones for breakfast. We didn't turn him once or exploit his obvious weakness in his lack of pace.

As the game was running down for what I expected to be a draw, Pompey threw on Kanu whilst Moyes' pondered introducing Gosling. For some reason, Gosling got his kit off but was then told to sit tight, presumably whilst we defended a corner? From that corner, Kanu did enough to put off Howard and Crouch did the rest leaping over Fellaini who didn't appear to jump. Game over.

Driving home I was struggling to remember the last time Everton got beaten by a team not competing for a top six finish. It looks like the aberrational trip to Wigan in November. Which is an indication of how well the side has done in the last 3 months. The fixture list gets harder now but we're still in decent shape for finishing sixth.

No sign of the loon with the bells this year. Disappointing.