Tom Cleverley harboured mixed emotions. If heading Everton’s winner seconds before the final whistle had clearly left the midfielder on a high, it was tempered by a swift glance at the Premier League table.
Roberto Martínez’s side stand ninth, six points short of fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur, and Cleverley is not alone in believing they should be doing considerably better. “We definitely feel we should be in that top four,” he said. “We feel we’ve got the squad to be challenging up there.”
Few present at a sodden St James’ Park would disagree. Everton dominated first-half possession, embarrassing Newcastle by running through an appealing repertoire of one- and two-touch passing accompanied by seamless positional rotation. “We feel like we’re playing top-six football without the results,” said Cleverley. “It’s so enjoyable to play in this team. The [positional] rotation, the short passing, the combinations, it’s really exciting. I’m really enjoying my football again.”
Everton possess one of the league’s most feared strikers in Romelu Lukaku, and, arguably, its most exciting winger in Gerard Deulofeu (who, having finally stepped off the bench, helped win the corner and then delivered it to preface Cleverley’s clincher). Yet despite this they often struggle to finish opponents off and a record of six wins and eight draws in 18 games has damaged their chances of European qualification via the league.
By the second half a Newcastle side playing very much on the break had identified a key reason why.
For all Everton’s comfort in possession while building from the back and as pleasing as John Stones’s distribution from centre-half invariably is, Martínez’s side are not that great in the air.
Consequently a team which forced Tim Howard into only one save – from Georginio Wijnaldum’s header – also missed possibly the evening’s two most clear-cut chances when Aleksandar Mitrovic connected with a couple of stellar crosses but somehow headed both wide.
Granted, Rob Elliot, Newcastle’s excellent goalkeeper, made a series of tremendous saves, most notably from Lukaku, but even Martínez had surely settled for a draw when, deep in stoppage time, Elliot could only punch Deulofeu’s corner to Cleverley. Unmarked, he rose to squeeze a looping header just under the bar.
“Hopefully this can be the turning point in our season,” said the former Manchester United midfielder. “Hopefully winning at Newcastle will be our catapult to be really challenging in that top six.”
Stoke, Everton’s Goodison Park guests on Monday, will arrive with no intention of buying into that particular narrative and Martínez is certainly not underestimating the immediate challenge.
“If Stoke had started the season a bit sharper they could be in the top four now,” he said. “They have incredible balance. Mark Hughes has done a remarkable job to introduce flair and creativity without losing all the good things his team already had. We’ll have to be ready.”
To slightly differing extents Martínez, Hughes and Steve McClaren share a broad vision of their teams playing an attractive, attacking passing game underpinned by controlled possession. Unfortunately for McClaren, a lack of suitable personnel dictates that he has had to scrap his original blueprint for a much more pragmatic model he hopes will serve as a temporary fix, enabling Newcastle to escape relegation.
The former England manager could be forgiven for casting covetous eyes at Everton’s Gareth Barry – how Newcastle could do with an experienced, slick-passing central midfielder possessing an adhesive touch – but, without such a figure, he must find a way to lift his team out of the bottom three by outwitting Tony Pulis at The Hawthorns on Monday. Perhaps switching Moussa Sissoko from wide right to central midfield might prove a worthwhile experiment.
“West Brom’s a mental test as much as a physical test for us,” said McClaren. “It’s a big challenge.”
He has reasons to be cautiously optimistic that Newcastle might just rise to it. Although Fabricio Coloccini was lucky not to concede a first-half penalty for fouling Lukaku and Daryl Janmaat might have been sent off for a second bookable offence, their second-half performance came steeped in admirable spirit.
With Chancel Mbemba, a fast-improving young centre-half, starting to get Lukaku’s measure Newcastle no longer sat quite so deep and, beginning to press Everton higher up the pitch, looked worth a point. “If we carry on like this we’ll start winning games,” said McClaren. “Hopefully 2016 will be better for us.”
Man of the match Rob Elliot (Newcastle United)
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