Lescott sorely missed as workmanlike Everton sneak all three points

A plucky Everton side tonight ended our unbeaten home record as a jaded City struggled to penetrate a well-organised defence. Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta grabbed the goals on a frustrating evening, the result leaving the race for fourth place well and truly in the balance.

Berto decided to bring Stevie Ireland back into the side after a period of bench-warming. Roque Santa Cruz made way as we reverted back to our favoured 4-5-1. Pablo Zabaleta filled in at left-back in the absence of Wayne Bridge, with Micah Richards returning on the opposite flank. Kolo Toure continued to deputise for Joleon Lescott. Nige de Jong replaced Patrick Vieira.

Everton started with Johnny Heitinga in a central midfield role, Phil Jagielka partnering former Blue Sylvain Distin in defence. Tim Cahill started off lone striker Louis Saha, with Diniyar Bilyaletdinov and Yakubu having to make do with places on the bench.

The visitors pressed early, keeping the ball well for the opening ten as we tried putting our stamp on the game with several crunching tackles. The first incident of note was a booking for leading goalscorer Carlos Tevez. After forcing Jagielka into an error down our left flank, Phil Neville's saving clearance led to a 50/50 between Tevez and the former Sheffield United man, Carlos opting for a bit of an odd challenge with his head that was never either dangerous or unfair.

Neither side really created much in terms of clear-cut chances. Leighton Baines was having his fair share of luck down his wing, but it was Micah Richards who forced the first stop, Howard getting his fingertips to a header that seemed destined to test the woodwork. Tevez then had a good shout for a penalty, latching onto Ireland's hook over the defence he was clearly brought down by Howard, but Peter Walton, he who had such a poor game during the visit of tonight's city rivals last month, wasn't interested.

The incident came during a spell of around twenty-five minutes solid possession - Tevez almost beat Howard to a Johnson cross, Bellamy tested the American after a good move down the right involving Richards, Johnson and Ireland, then Carlos wanted one too many touches on a scrappy run through two or three defenders inside the area.

Completely against the run of play Everton hit us with a sucker punch. Whilst the tackle judged to be a foul by Walton was very soft, Barry adjudged to have brought down Cahill, there were a couple of bites on the way, so i'm not sure we can have any real complaints on that one, though the ref was awful overall. The ball was rolled back to Baines, completely unmarked to the left of the penalty box, and his cross found the head of Cahill, who has a habit of bagging goals against us.

Stevie Ireland was replaced five minutes short of the break, forced to hobble off just as he'd began to have some impact on proceedings. Shaun Wright-Phillips initially replaced him like-for-like, though he did move to his natural right side later on. Everton might have added to their lead after some sloppy defending gifted them a free-kick just outside our box. Pienaar was booked for a late challenge, Arteta somehow wasn't, yet Given was for protesting, summing up the official's kamikaze evening.

If anything it was the visitors who started the second period the brighter. A lethargic Vincent Kompany pass out of defence fell to Osman whose shot took a slight deflection and curled wide of Given's upright. Cahill then almost scored a goal worthy of sealing any game, chipping just left of the post. For a while Everton looked dominant, Johnny Heitinga proving especially effective turning defence into attack.

Just shy of the hour Mancini tried changing things again, taking off Adam Johnson and replacing him with Roque Santa Cruz in a switch to 4-4-2. It appeared to do us good as we again went on a twenty-plus minutes surge, wave after wave at the Toffees goal but with Tevez well taken care of by a surprisingly unrusty Jagielka we could turn little of our good possession into chances. For a while even Kolo Toure did his bit - galloping runs from one end of the field to the other, but we struggled to breach a solid Everton backline.

As much as you might argue that we had much more of the ball, the simple facts are that we did nothing with it in or around the area for the entire game. We were restricted to half-chances, and it's rare, if at all, that that's happened on our own patch this season. Santa Cruz blazed over, but we were never going to score, and with Everton by this point playing what in effect was a 4-6 formation, there was always a chance their extra midfield bodies would count as we wore ourselves out.

With five minutes left on the clock Mikel Arteta settled the game. Osman picked the ball up to the right on the halfway line and prodded forward to sub Rodwell. He went round Kompany with relative ease and pulled back for the Spaniard to strike home low right-footed past Shay. Moyes and Mancini were both ordered to leave the field later on, both probably unfairly, especially Moyes whose crime seemed solely being pushed by his opposite number.

I think we have to give Everton some credit. We were below par, but they made us look so. Our tempo is set, week after week, by two players, and as touched on before, the most dangerous of those, Tevez, was outdone by Jagielka. Bellamy had his fair share of possession but didn't look as lively as usual, and both of those things meant we were very blunt going forwards. We've seen Moyes send his teams here hoping to get lucky off a set-piece many times, and they were again, but you have to ask why no-one chose to pick Baines up knowing he can deliver pinpoint balls in like he did.

At the opposite end we again suffered from Toure Syndrome. His efforts going forwards can't be ignored, but the sheer presence of the Ivorian in the defence has us looking more like the Keystone Cops of the last days of Hughes than the disciplined pack that's matured under Roberto. The distribution of both centre-halves tonight was as big a negative as anything. Whenever we cut out an Everton attack the ball inevitably made its way back to a player in a dark blue shirt. With Joleon alongside Vince we'd drastically improved on that front.

Things, as they stand, are still in our hands, and hopefully tonight can prove a wake-up call. We're not as good at home as our record suggests, but neither are Everton anything less than a true challenger for fourth place only put back by serious injuries. Walton was poor, sure, but so were we. Everton didn't play particularly well, but they came with a game plan and stuck to it, we again assumed we'd wing it and were caught out. Fair cop.

Team:
Given, Richards (Vieira '75), Zabaleta, Toure, Kompany, de Jong, Ireland (Wright-Phillips '41), Barry, A.Johnson (Santa Cruz '57), Tevez, Bellamy