Everton 0 - 2 Coventry City

15 October 1994

Scorers
Everton:
Coventry:Dublin (7), Wegerle (18)
Yellow cards
Everton:
Coventry:
Lineups
Everton: Southall 6, Jackson 6, Unsworth 6, Ablett 6, Burrows 6, Horne 6, Samways 6, Durrant 6, Parkinson 6 (77. Stuart), Ferguson 7, Amokachi 6
Subs not used: Kearton, Rideout
Officiating
Referee:
Linesmen:
Attendance: 28,233

The marks might seem a bit peculiar, but judging from marks and reports from several sources, that's how it looked.

Overview

Another large crowd at Goodison (>29000) keeps the average way up on previous seasons (and Man City).

Everton set about Coventry with a purpose and had two dangerous attacks in the first 5 minutes, with plenty of blue bodies in the box.

Coventry's first attack produced a corner. A flick-header on was poorly cleared by Parkinson, but as it fell just behind Dublin, who was facing away from goal, the Everton defenders, particularly Horne, rushed out for offside but left Dublin unmolested and got burned by a ludicrous overhead kick goal from 14 yards.

Coventry's second attack: poor diagonal cross intercepted by Ablett at centre-back, but his control allows the ball to run away to a Coventry player, who passes short to Wegerle. Jackson closes him down but he hooks a low shot around past him and past Southall. I was going to blame Nev, but several slow-mo video replays show that he cannot be blamed for his positioning, only for not having the reach & leap of Bonnetti or young Lukic anymore.

Coventry's third attack. Dangerous cross rocketed in when bye-line too easily surrendered. Goal looks certain, but Southall's top drawer low save near his body saves it.

Interspersed with these 3 incidents, Everton had most of the possession, but failed to make any dangerous attacks out of it.

Second Half

Coventry pack the D area with defenders, and did not mount an attack, let alone a shot in the second half. They had their goals, they held on like grim death. Boring, boring, boring. Hey, it must be great to be a Coventry fan and look forward to staying up and seeing performances like that every week.. NOT!

Ferguson had clear three headers which could have produced goals (so the newspaper reports of 'terrible service' are bullshit. Two went wide, and the third, made by Ammo, was headed down and firmly off the ground into Oggi's arms from the corner of the 6 yard box with the whole goal to aim at.

Unfortunatly, this wrapped up Everton's chances, because they couldn't think up any new ways to penetrate the packed defence. The short 1-2 passes always got smothered by weight of numbers.

Evertonian support for the manager, which before the game was 90% now seems to be about 50%. Their patience is almost exhausted. There will be no sacking this week, but if they are still winless in three weeks, I think that will be too much for the board to bear.

Player by player

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