And with that, we’ll leave for for the day. Have a splendid remainder of the weekend. If golf is your thing, Scott Murray will guide you through the closing stages of the Masters, over here. Night!
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Well what an excellent way to spend a couple of hours. The second half wasn’t quite as entertaining as the first, but then again it probably couldn’t have been. Everton get their win, which takes them level on points with Arsenal, with the considerable caveat of the Gooners’ three games in hand.
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Full-time: Everton 4-2 Leicester City
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
90 mins + 3: Nothing has happened in the added time.
90 mins: Three minutes of added time.
88 mins: Everton counter at pace through Mirallas, who spreads it to Lukaku and he drives towards the box, but just as he shoots he slips and kicks the ball against his standing leg.
87 mins: Ulloa millimetres away from scoring again. A cross comes over from Mahrez on the right, he gets a good header in but it’s too close to Robles, who saves, then Jagielka dives in to clear with Musa waiting to slot the rebound home.
85 mins: Barkley shoots left-footed from the edge of the box, but it’s straight at Schmeichel and with limited power.
84 mins: Chilwell slips a pass inside the left channel looking for the run of Musa, but that’s just a little strong and goes out for a goal-kick.
81 mins: Benalouane is lucky to escape without a yellow card after going through Lukaku.
79 mins: And Ulloa nearly makes an instant impact: Mahrez swings over the corner, Ulloa gets above Holgate to win the header which is arrowing goalwards, before it hits Gueye in the face about three yards out and is cleared.
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78 mins: That said, Leicester have livened up slightly: Musa gets down the right, and his cross is deflected behind for a corner. Their final sub comes, as Leo Ulloa makes a rare appearance, replacing Albrighton. Tactics for the last 15-odd minutes are clear, then.
76 mins: Quiet few minutes. Everyone seems relatively happy with how things are: Everton with the win, and Leicester having got through the game unscathed before they play Atletico.
73 mins: Sub for Everton - Gareth Barry comes on for Morgan Schneiderlin.
71 mins: Lovely one-two between Barkley and Lukaku, but the latter dithers over his finish and a combination of Chilwell and Huth crowds him out.
70 mins: Albrighton hooks a high, looping ball into the area, which should be a relatively easy take for Robles, but he makes a meal of catching it at the back stick.
68 mins: Musa and Slimani combine well down the left, the former skims a cross over but it’s just headed clear.
66 mins: Yep, he’s not bad.
23 - Romelu Lukaku (23 goals) has now scored more Premier League goals than Middlesbrough (22 goals) this season. Perspective. pic.twitter.com/88u57UV5tL
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) April 9, 2017
64 mins: Bobby Madley is enjoying the advantage rule today: King takes out Gueye, but the referee lets things go while Lukaku has a shooting chance, which he then gives up to slip in Mirallas, but he can’t get the ball from under his feet. Then a yellow card is flourished a few minutes later.
63 mins: “MAKE A DECISION” bellows Ronald Koeman at an official. Unsure as to what had vexed him so.
62 mins: Matt Loten is having a smashing time: “I know ‘modern’ types in online comment sections will bemoan the lack of controlled possession in this game as evidence of why Premier League teams don’t thrive in Europe, but bludgeon me with a budgie if this isn’t the most entertaining game of football I’ve seen all season.”
60 mins: Double change for Leicester - Gray is hooked, and Riyad Mahrez comes on in his place, while Ahmed Musa comes on for Vardy, who has been quiet.
59 mins: “Remember England 2 Argentina 2 in 1998?” asks Alex McD, on a mission to depress us all. “Tom Davies was born on the same day.”
57 mins: Mirallas wins a corner on the left, from which Jagielka goes up for a header, doesn’t get all of it and it finds its way to Lukaku at the back stick, and he shoots across goal, into the bottom corner.
GOAL! Everton 4-2 Leicester City (Lukaku 57)
Game over?
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56 mins: A brief scrappy spell in a game of otherwise high quality. Neither side can quite control the ball.
53 mins: Gueye dithers on the ball and Slimani nips in, thinks he’s dispossessed the midfielder but he’s penalised for a foul, to which he reacts with the requisite incredulity.
51 mins: Vardy and Albrighton exchange passes and the latter sets Slimani away in the left channel. His shot takes a deflection and very nearly sneaks in at the near-post, but just misses it.
49 mins: Barkley does well to win the ball about 35 yards out, he feeds Mirallas who shoots from the left side of the area, but it’s straight at Schmeichel who saves easily.
47 mins: Brilliant piece of skill by Lukaku - he backheels to Holgate on the right, near the byline, but after the ball is cut back to Barkley he takes too long to get his shot away and it’s cleared.
46 mins: We’re away, and immediately there’s a beefy clash between Schneiderlin and Slimani, who both go down fairly heavily. Both seem fine after a spot of treatment, though.
And the teams are out for the second half. No changes by either side.
What a marvellous half of football. Three goals in the opening ten minutes, followed by a deeply disappointing barren spell of just two in the next 35. Buck your ideas up, please.
Half-time: Everton 3-2 Leicester City
Well, you’ve seen worse games, eh?
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45 mins + 3: Albrighton tries to round of the half in style by shooting from about five yards inside the Everton half, but the effort tails well wide.
45 mins + 2: Nearly some fine slapstick as a rather spicy backpass by Amartey causes Schmeichel to scramble, then almost stumble as he tries to clear, but eventually he manages to keep his feet and get rid of the ball.
45 mins +1: Albrighton chucks the resultant free-kick into the box, and Slimani looks to have a clear header at the far post but Jagielka just nips in and heads it behind.
45 mins: Booking for Baines, for taking out King on the Leicester right. He vehemently objected to that yellow card, but it looked fair enough.
43 mins: That’s two in two for Jagielka, having previously not scored in nearly two years.
41 mins: Initially some brilliant goalkeeping from Schmeichel, as a charged down clearance sets Barkley free on goal, he half takes it around the keeper who somehow manages to get a paw on it and send it behind for a corner. But that corner is whipped in at pace, and Jagielka gets up ahead of all the defenders to nod it home.
GOAL! Everton 3-2 Leicester City (Jagielka 41)
Lots to catch up on with this goal.
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39 mins: Gueye, Mirallas and Barkley exchange passes nicely on the edge of the area, the shooting chance falls to the former but his deflected effort is deflected wide.
38 mins: “Huthian? Interesting,” writes Mark Grice, giving your minute-by-minuter more credit than is due. “Which other players or managers deserve adjectives? Does Shakespearean now mean motivating a team of lazy arses to put up a fight?”
37 mins: Lukaku drifts out to the right, receives the ball then saunters past Chilwell like the young left-back is a mirage, but after cutting in on his left foot he flays the shot miles over the bar.
34 mins: Barkley tries a low ball into the middle for Mirallas, but it doesn’t reach the Belgian and a chance is wasted.
33 mins: Holgate overlaps on the right, and reaches the byline. He’s just about to cross, but Slimani - back ‘helping’ the defence - chops him down. Dangerous free-kick for Everton.
28 mins: The only thing this game was missing so far was a fight - and now the players have obliged with that one too. A relatively low-level one, but Mirallas objects to some typically Huthian chipping away at his heels, turns around to confront him and, in retro fighting man fashion, grabs a handful of Huth’s shirt. Players from both sides pile in, but the stramash is broken up relatively quickly. Bookings for both the initial combatants.
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27 mins: Baines gets a talking to for blocking off Albrighton on the Leicester right. A long ball then drops over Holgate’s head and Gray takes it down well, but then fouls the Everton youngster.
25 mins: Seriously: it was closer in, but that Barkley cross was a sort of little brother to the famous David Beckham effort to Ronaldo a few years back.
23 mins: Barkley gets the ball deepish on the right, shifts into a bit of space and curls over an absolutely perfect, fizzing cross that curls in behind the Leicester defence, right onto Lukaku’s head and he powers it home. You could say Lukaku wasn’t being marked properly, but that was an absolutely exquisite piece of play from Barkley.
GOAL! Everton 2-2 Leicester (Lukaku 23)
The best of the lot, that.
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21 mins: Holgate makes a move down the right, slips it inside to Lukaku on the edge of the box who tries to complete the one-two, but it’s a ways too far ahead of the young right-back and skids out for a goal-kick.
20 mins: Don’t harsh our buzz, Johnny.
@NickMiller79 Chelsea V Crystal Palace stayed at 1-2 from the 14th minute until the 100th minute last week (10 mins injury time second half)
— Johnny Anon (@JohnAnon2015) April 9, 2017
18 mins: Everton embark on something approaching an attack, down the left. Baines booms over a big cross from deep, but it’s just too high for Lukaku, and it’s cleared.
16 mins: Gray goes down after a rather robust aerial challenge from Gueye, but no action is taken by the ref. Six barren, goalless minutes now. I’m writing to my MP.
14 mins: Gray cuts in from the left and shoots low towards the Everton goal, but there’s not enough power behind it and Robles saves with some ease. We’ve now gone four minutes without a goal. Come on lads, buck up a bit.
13 mins: “I think that the FA,” writes a flustered Matt Loten, “next time it decides to give the rulebook a shakeup, should consider banning goals in the opening five minutes, so that those of us who haven’t finished brewing their tea don’t miss anything. Nothing worse than getting to the telly a few minutes late to find you’ve missed what will inevitably be the only goals of the game.”
11 mins: If the game carries on like this - and we have no reason to suspect it won’t - the final score is going to be 9-18.
10 mins: Leicester win a free-kick on the left edge of the area. Albrighton steps up, whips the ball over and it quite simply curls straight into the top corner. He was probably trying to cross and overhit it, but no matter. Three goals in the opening ten minutes. Lovely stuff.
GOAL! Everton 1-2 Leicester (Albrighton 10)
Well this is just getting silly now.
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6 mins: What do people who don’t like sport do with their time? Do they know what fun they’re missing out on?
4 mins: Well this is rather good fun. Leicester counter from the left, with Gray running at pace and eventually cutting inside. The Everton defence back off and off and off, giving Gray time to pick a pass to Slimani in acres of space on the right of the box, and he neatly tucks it between Robles’s legs.
GOAL! Everton 1-1 Leicester City (Slimani 4)
MY EFFING DAYS!
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3 mins: Everton close to a second as Lukaku curls in a beautiful ball from deepish in the right channel, but it skips up and Mirallas can’t quite control it after sneaking in behind Amartey.
1 min: What a start! A rapid counter-attack is led by Kevin Mirallas, who is bundled over on the edge of the penalty area by Daniel Amartey, but the referee plays a fine advantage as the ball breaks to Tom Davies, who takes a second to sort his feet out but eventually finds enough space to dig out a shot and beat Kasper Schmeichel at the near-post. This kid is going to be some player.
GOAL! Everton 1-0 Leicester City (Davies 1)
My days!
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1 min: We’re away. Everton are kicking from right to left, towards the Park End, wearing blue shirts, white shorts and white stockings, while in a pleasing piece of symmetry Leicester are in white shirts, blue shorts and blue stockings.
We have some teams. Football is about to happen.
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The day’s early game saw Manchester United give the twitching corpse of Sunderland a solid shoeing. Here’s Louise Taylor’s match report from that one.
To move away from this game for a brief spell, this looks utterly nightmarish.
Fancy a read of an excellent thing? Look no further than Nick Ames’s interview with Wilfried ‘Yes’ Ndidi:
Leicester saw in Ndidi the same things as Maes – “a lot of running and trying to win balls”, is what the player suspects – but there has already been so much more. He arrived with a reputation for scoring rarely but spectacularly; a driving run and finish in the FA Cup replay with Derby, bettered by last weekend’s thrilling long-range effort against Stoke in the league, bore that out quickly and alongside those thunderclaps has been a composure that belies his years. It may have taken the champions half a season to get over the departure of N’Golo Kanté but, in a player almost six years younger, have they now found someone who – for a relatively moderate £17m – could represent an upgrade?
Team news
Everton
Robles, Holgate, Jagielka, Pennington, Baines; Davies, Schneiderlin, Gueye; Mirallas, Barkley, Lukaku. Subs: Stekelenburg, Barry, Valencia, Calvert-Lewin, Lookman, Kenny, Joe Williams.
Leicester City
Schmeichel; Amartey, Benalouane, Huth, Chilwell; Albrighton, King, Drinkwater, Gray; Slimani, Vardy. Subs: Zieler, Musa, Kupustka, Simpson, Ulloa, Mahrez, Wasilewski.
Referee: Bobby ‘Robert’ Madley (Wakefield)
Preamble
How the two teams approach this game might actually be more interesting than the game itself. Leicester, with their remarkable turnaround since Claudio Ranieri was given the ol’ heave-ho means they’re now more or less safe from relegation, and the Champions League is now their primary concern. So, will Craig ‘Shakey’ Shakespeare bin this game off and instead concentrate on keeping his best players fresh for the game against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday?
“We’ve got a few little niggles,” said Shakespeare, which is pleasingly convenient for him. “I will pick a team that can win at Everton. My only focus is on Everton and not Madrid. It’s trying to get the right balance. It’s for me and the staff to assess the lads that have got little niggles and that might benefit from a few more days’ rest, but also trying to keep the momentum going.”
And for Everton, the last couple of games have seen a couple of non-ideal results, and you could lay some of the blame at manager Ronald Koeman’s feet. Certainly, the team selected for last weekend’s Merseyside derby was a little odd, all narrow and negative, reliant on a collection of kids, a few of whom simply don’t look ready. So will he cut loose a little more on Leicester? Perhaps try to recover some of the momentum lost by the defeat to Liverpool and the late draw with Manchester United? We shall see.
Kick-off: 4pm BST
Nick will be here shortly.
