Everton 3 - 1 MiddlesbroughEverton see off Middlesbrough as Barry scores on 600th Premier League game
Home team scorersGareth Barry 24
Seamus Coleman 42
Romelu Lukaku 45 +0:02
Away team scorersMaarten Stekelenburg 21 o.g.
Everton have not always responded well to adversity in the past but there is steel running through the side under Ronald Koeman. They went behind to the most dubious of away goals midway through the first half but simply brushed the injustice aside, recovered within minutes and went on to claim a handsome victory. Everton now sit second in the table and have scored six goals in their last two games, though it must be said Middlesbrough, like Sunderland earlier in the week, do not possess the most resolute of defences.
“Our start was not good,” Koeman said. “We needed to be more aggressive with the pressing but we got there in the end and played some great football. We have improved a lot physically and we have brought in players with a lot of energy.”
Gareth Barry enjoyed an eventful evening as he made his 600th Premier League appearance, only the third player to record such a milestone after Ryan Giggs and Frank Lampard. The Everton vice-captain could have gifted Middlesbrough an opening goal when he lost the ball in front of his own penalty area, and was relieved when Gastón Ramírez proved to be less sharp at shooting than dispossessing opponents.
Six minutes later the visitors did take an unexpected lead, and Barry led the posse of Everton players moaning about it. In fairness he probably had a point, Álvaro Negredo’s goal should not have stood. Replays showed the Boro striker headed Maarten Stekelenburg’s arm rather than the ball as the pair tried to claim George Friend’s cross from the left touchline, thus preventing the goalkeeper making a clean catch. Lee Mason did not have the benefit of replays, however, and awarded the goal, presumably on the grounds that Negredo only attacked the ball and did not appear to have committed any obvious foul.
One imagines Barry was making the point a little too forcibly that in such situations goalkeepers are normally given the benefit of the doubt. In a way it was refreshing to find a referee unwilling to treat goalkeepers as a protected species, and possibly true that Negredo also deserved the benefit of the doubt, though had the referee had the opportunity to watch a replay he would have been forced to change his mind.
If the occasion was turning a little sour Barry lost no time in making amends. A mere three minutes after going behind Everton were level, and it was Barry at the far post who provided the equaliser. Víctor Valdés punched ineffectively at a Kevin Mirallas corner, succeeding only in pushing the ball against Negredo, from whom it fell to Barry to tuck away with a neat finish, though once again there was an element of controversy. Valdés might have dealt with the cross better had not Ashley Williams impeded the goalkeeper by going for the ball with a raised boot.
Ross Barkley and Yannick Bolasie both went close for the home side once the scores were level before Everton hit two goals in quick succession to turn round 3-1 in front, a half-time scoreline that little in the previous 45 minutes had suggested. Séamus Coleman scored the first, accepting a short pass from Romelu Lukaku and coolly rounding Daniel Ayala in the Boro area to make his shooting angle easier, then in the final second of added time Lukaku himself added another. At least the striker claimed the goal, in reality it appeared he had merely stretched out a leg to Bolasie’s cross and made negligible contact. Bolasie had just as strong a claim to the goal, though Lukaku could claim with some justification that it was his action that had diverted the attention of the goalkeeper. Barry’s day become even more eventful with a booking at the end of the first half, after an altercation with Ramírez.
Boro became the second north-east team in a week to be floored by Everton’s ability to score bursts of goals, and the second half was basically a story of a team full of confidence passing the ball at will around a defence more interested in damage limitation. Barkley was conspicuous in most home attacks after his dressing down at Sunderland, clearly focused on correcting the impression that he gives the ball away too cheaply.
There were occasions, in fact, when Barkley might have done better to release the ball a little earlier, though one determined run into the box after an hour brought a good save from Valdés at the foot of his left hand post.
“Today was the Ross Barkley we like to see,” Koeman said. “He’s not a young player any more, he needs to take responsibility. I was honest in what I said about him, but players are not stupid, they know when they have not played well.”
Barkley would have liked a goal to mark his rehabilitation, yet though always in control, Everton seemed to lose their attacking focus once Lukaku was withdrawn. Enner Valencia made his debut, without managing to decorate it with any contribution of note.
“We lost our concentration at the end of the first half but apart from that Everton had to play well to beat us,” Aitor Karanka said. “They are a good side, better than us. I think many teams night have lost that game by five or six goals to one.”
Guardian
