Everton vs Chelsea: The One Chelsea Lost (Again)

Steven Naismith's biggest fan

There was a good chance that this opening paragraph would just be an expletive laden rant and certainly could still devolve into that. Apologies in advance. But really, with the turgid performances that have been on display there just aren’t a lot of words in the English language better suited to describe what we’re all witnessing at the moment.

Everton vs Chelsea: Not a Masterclass in Defence - But Loads of Fun

Update: They kissed & made up

Well, that was a bit of fun, wasn’t it?! I feel pretty confident in saying that NO ONE saw that coming. Goodison Park normally a difficult ground for anyone to go to - Chelsea scoring just 2 goals in their last 3 trips there combined. The only two guarantees were Steven Naismith was going to score — again. And Eto’o was going to score no matter how little time he got against Chelsea.

Like Didier Drogba on the opening day, Diego Costa rose from the dead to feature in the starting lineup. With Torres off to sample some ossobuco and no one in to take his place, it appeared Mourinho didn’t have much choice but to start Costa - injured or not. It took just 36 seconds for any concerns about the ‘injury’ to evaporate. And another 2 minutes for the game to appear fully in Chelsea’s control. 

But after Arsenal battled back against them a week ago, Everton were not prepared to just sit back and let Chelsea park any sort of multi-passenger vehicle. They were also fully prepared to take full advantage of the stellar job that Moss and his assistants did yesterday awarding offside goals and letting Tim Howard’s beard catch a ball just about anywhere he wants.

And all of that in just 45 minutes! There was fear that the second half couldn’t live up to the thrilling first half. Surely Mourinho would just shut up shop and head back to London with three points in hand. Boring, boring Chelsea and all that.