Sodding Everton

Well, we got a point from an infuriating 90-some minutes against Everton on Saturday, but football was the real loser.

I was looking at some stats and, if they are to be believed, we had 78% possession. That's just ridiculous, and makes the fact that we only scored one goal (from a set piece) all the more frustrating. It was a good goal from RvP on a day when Thierry didn't really turn up, although I thought Howard, following on from some heroic saves from Fabregas and Rosicky, might have done better when he got a hand to it.

Their goal was, once again, down to a moment of comic defending, where Tim Cahill (of all fucking people, he's probably the most dangerous man in the team after Johnson) was left unmarked at a corner, it hit him and he then fired home from a yard out. Typical of our home performances this season, give the opposition one good chance early on, they take it, we spend the next 70 minutes trying to break down two rows of five.

We are going to have to accept that some teams are going to play that way against us. We all saw what happened to Reading, a side who have been playing very well at home, when they decided to play football against us rather than stick eleven behind the ball and kick us and waste time, so maybe it was predictable that Everton would do this if they managed to go a goal up.

However, Everton are a top six side. Everton have been playing well this season. Before the weekend's fixtures only Man Yoo had scored more league goals than Everton. And yet they still play the way they did. I suppose in some ways it's a complement that a side like Everton are so afraid of us, but it's worrying and a trend that's likely to continue. It's just a shame that both our new big lads, Adebayor and Baptista, were our injured on Saturday. It would have been good to see how they could've knocked the shape out of the Toffees.

The rumours linking us with a bid for Huntelaar just won't go away, as we're now being tipped to make a £12m offer in the near future. I still don't see it myself. Henry, van Persie, Adebayor, Walcott, Baptista and Aliadiere as well as Bendtner and Lupoli to come back, how on earth could Huntelaar even make the bench, let alone start a game?

Speaking of buying strikers we don't need, young Swiss lad Julian Esteben has linked himself with a move to the Arse in January, stating that we've had him watched a number of times. Again, I don't see it.

Arsene says he's in no hurry to sort out his new contract, which I suppose means we'll have to wait for next summer, and endure a whole host claims from other teams that he's signed pre-contract agreements to leave and go manage elsewhere. Wonderful.