That’s all from me. It was, eventually, exciting. Thanks for sharing these moments with me. Bye!
A frustrating game. There was plenty of energy, but very little attacking quality from either side. That means post-match discussion will be focused on the three United villains: red-card refugees Rojo and Ibrahimovic, and blundering penalty-donor Fellaini. Unless Mourinho can think of something really ridiculous to say to distract everybody.
On the plus side, though, the point takes United back to sixth.
7 - Manchester United have dropped seven points from goals conceded in the last 10 minutes of PL games this season, a league high. Sloppy.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) December 4, 2016
Mourinho's Manchester United now have 2 points FEWER than Van Gaal's United managed from the same 14 matches last season. #EVEMUN #mufc
— Simon Gleave (@SimonGleave) December 4, 2016
The cameras focus on Fellaini as the players leave the field. Mourinho thought he would help United cling on to victory, and instead he gave it away. Still, I feel they can hardly complain about the result, and neither side can claim to have truly excelled here.
Final score: Everton 1-1 Manchester United
90+6 mins: And that’s it!
90+5 mins: In the last minute of stoppage time, Everton surge forward. Valencia nearly gets the ball in the penalty area, ends up running away from goal, works it wide, but the cross is too close to De Gea.
90+3 mins: Gueye, playing gainst the team he supported as a boy, is named man of the match by Gary Neville on Sky.
90+3 mins: This is just manic now. Pleasingly manic. Manic is a big improvement on the first half.
90+2 mins: Suddenly United attack, and Ibrahimovic slides in a low cross. It looks like Rashford is going to reach it first, but Holgate slides in to get there first.
90+1 mins: And De Gea saves again, from a Baines piledriver.
90+1 mins: Into stoppage time, and as the fourth official raises a board bearing the number five, the home fans roar again. Could they?
90 mins: Fellaini heads the corner out, Everton send it back in, De Gea collects, and Lukaku blocks his attempted clearance. That’s a booking.
89 mins: Everton push forward again, with the crowd roaring them on, and a long-range shot is deflected wide for a corner.
GOAL! Everton 1-1 Manchester United (Baines, 89 mins)
Baines passes the ball low and firm to his left. De Gea goes the right way, but is outdone by the accuracy of the shot.
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88 mins: Fellaini gets booked for complaining about the decision, and De Gea gets booked for delaying the penalty.
Penalty! Fellaini gives Everton a lifeline!
87 mins: The ball is played to Gueye inside the penalty area, and Fellaini blunders in cluelessly. “It’s garbage from him,” rages Gary Neville on Sky.
85 mins: Ibrahimovic jumps into Baines in an effort to win a high ball, falls heavily and is winded for a while. United take off Mkhitaryan – who walks to the bench with admirable briskness – and bring on Fellaini.
82 mins: United do appear to have weathered the Everton storm, easing the pressure on their defence by taking their time over any available set-pieces, and now by taking off Martial – handily placed on the very opposite site of the pitch from the bench – and bringing on Rashford.
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80 mins: And another save! A cross from the right is dinked to the edge of the six yard box, and though Valencia’s header is pretty much unchallenged, he can’t get enough power on it to beat De Gea.
77 mins: Save! Everton get a free-kick on the right and send in the cross, Holgate’s flicked header is dropping in at the far post, but De Gea tips it over the bar.
75 mins: Save! Gueye, 23 yards out, stings De Gea’s palms with a swerving, driven shot.
73 mins: Everton have had 66% of possession in the last 10 minutes. They haven’t done much with it, but pressure is building.
70 mins: Holgate wins the ball excellently and gives it away stupidly, all within the space of about three seconds.
68 mins: And Everton keep falling apart. Now Bolasie limps off. Enner Valencia comes on.
67 mins: Mason Holgate comes on.
66 mins: Coleman is now down on his haunches, and signalling to his bench that he needs to come off. How much did that Ibrahimovic backheel have to do with this?
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65 mins: Everton make their first change, bringing Deulofeu on for Cleverley. Bolasie plays on.
63 mins: Bolasie battles for the ball on the right, his fight ending when Martial muscles him away from the ball with a shoulder. Bolasie flings himself to the ground and rolls around holding his knee, which suggests that he might have randomly properly hurt himself, because Bolasie’s reaction was otherwise ludicrously disproportionate.
60 mins: Then United hit the bar! Everton don’t really get the ball away, Carrick crosses from the right and it flicks off an Everton head to Herrera, who chests down and then volleys with his left foot into the top left corner of the woodwork!
60 mins: An Everton attack breaks down when Cleverley gets the ball stuck between his feet, and United run down the other end, but Mkhitaryan’s shot is blocked.
55 mins: Good pressure from United, thanks in part to Baines falling over when he would otherwise have cleared, ends with Martial’s shot being deflected wide.
53 mins: Great save! A nice move – yes, a nice move! – from Everton ends with Mirallas playing a one-two with Lukaku, walking straight through Rojo’s rubbish tackle, and then blasting a shot goalwards which De Gea diverts to safety!
51 mins: Mkhitaryan overhits a cross, and Coleman wins a race against Ibrahimovic for the loose ball. Ibrahimovic doesn’t give up on it, catches up with him, knocks him over, and then backheels him on the head, apparently deliberately. The referee doesn’t see it, but two United players could and probably should have been sent off today.
48 mins: … then De Gea’s goal kick goes straight to Lukaku, who is too surprised to profit. This is not promising.
47 mins: United take a throw-in on the left, sending it to Ibrahimovic on the half-way line. He chests down and sends a blind 40-yard pass to the right, where nobody is anywhere near it. Everton go up the other end, where Barry passes the ball straight out of play for a goal kick.
46 mins: Peeeeep! Mirallas starts half two.
The players are back out for the start of the second half – and it’s the same lot that finished the last one.
Ross Barkley is warming up (though to be fair the other Everton substitutes might be with him, it was hard to tell from Sky’s brief clip). They could argue that United should be down to 10 men, but as it stands Everton are going to have nothing at the end of this game but a hard-luck story.
“How on earth did Artur Boruc get from Bournemouth to Everton in time to play in this game?” asks JR. “In just one and a half games watched today I have seen some ludicrous, terrible goalkeeping.” There was some good stuff in Curzon Ashton v AFC Wimbledon as well. It’s been a clanger-packed day alright.
Half time: Everton 0-1 Manchester United
45+2 mins: Alright boys, get into the dressing room and sort this out.
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time, and there’ll be just the one minute of it. The goal came from the first and so far only shot on target, although really, given that it hit the woodwork twice and relied upon spin rather than accuracy to cross the line, it probably shouldn’t count either.
44 mins: The goal was entirely in keeping with this game, being all about error and a lack of precision.
GOAL! Everton 0-1 Manchester United (Ibrahimovic, 42 mins)
From nothing, a goal! And it’s all down to Stekelenburg, who decides to race from his goal to chase down a ball he was never going to get, allowing Ibrahimovic to send it spinning over his head. Still, it only just goes in: the shot bounces, hits the bar, hits the post, looks like it’s about to settle on the line, and then rolls behind it a moment before it’s cleared!
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41 mins: United keep the ball for a while, before Rojo tries to find Martial and doesn’t.
38 mins: Mkhitaryan makes a fine run into space on the right, leaving Baines in his wake, but Funes Mori does well to anticipate and divert Pogba’s pass.
35 mins: The last 10 minutes or so has been dreadful. No passing moves to speak of, just a lot of hopeful but aimless balls forward followed by clearances into touch.
32 mins: Barry gets booked! He got away with the assault on Ibrahimovic, and also a sneaky handball a few minutes later, but Oliver’s operating a three-strikes-and-you’re-in policy when it comes to his book, and a foul on Mkhitaryan gets Barry a yellow.
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30 mins: Now United get a free kick, 20 yards out, but Ibrahimovic sends it into the wall.
28 mins: Then United attack, but though they work a shooting chance for Herrera outside the box he doesn’t actually get to take a shot, because Pogba pulls Barry’s arm and concedes a free kick.
26 mins: Lukaku runs away from Rojo and plays in Bolasie, whose driven low cross flies across goal and out the other side.
22 mins: The players seem to have taken stock of Oliver’s refereeing decisions thus far and decided that they can probably be as violent as they like today.
21 mins: Everton counter, with Bolasie pushing the ball past the overly committed Darmian to open up all sorts of space on the right, but he can’t pick out Lukaku with his cross.
18 mins: The free-kick is lofted into the penalty area, where Phil Jones plays four Everton players onside and then doesn’t challenge any of them. Williams nods the ball back to Cleverley, who volleys high.
16 mins: Ouch! Rojo leaps in to challenge Gueye, both feet off the ground. He might as well have “SEND ME OFF NOW” flashing in giant neon lettering above his head, but having just shown some lenience to Barry, Michael Oliver produces only a yellow card.
14 mins: Ibrahimovic gets the ball in space just outside the Everton penalty area, with his back to goal. He looks around him for a team-mate offering himself, delays a pass to give one a bit of a chance to do so, gives up and hands the ball to Everton. No movement around him there.
11 mins: Barry absolutely cleans out Ibrahimovic with a late ankle-high challenge. He might as well have had “BOOK ME” tattooed upon his forehead, but in his infinite wisdom Michael Oliver delivers only a talking-to.
9 mins: Mkhitaryan finds Martial with a lovely first-time pass, but the Frenchman is both offside and also off target with his eventual shot, which comes off Stekelenburg and goes wide.
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8 mins: Now they have a shot, but it’s from distance, from the left foot of Paul Pogba, and it flies a long way from its target.
5 mins: Everton still look the better side. United have hoisted a couple of long balls down the right flank for Martial to chase after, but that’s about it so far.
2 mins: Now they do! Bolasie bursts down the right and crosses, and Carrick just about gets a toe to it to stop Lukaku from heading in!
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2 mins: Everton pass the ball about for a full minute without doing anything remotely interesting with it.
1 min: Peeeeep! Zlatan gets the game under way.
But first, a minute’s silence for the victims of the Colombia plane crash.
Hands shaken, anthem played, Z-Cars driven off, we’re moments away from actual action.
The players are in the tunnel. Action imminent.
Leon Osman on Sky, discussing Anthony Martial’s form: “He was asked to move numbers at the start of the season, which seems to have set him back.” Is that really a thing?
The two managers have been speaking to Sky. First, Ronald Koeman on his team selection:
If I have to make decisions about last week, then of course you can change more players. It’s a decision about tacticals. In the game what we need, what we need to do better, and that’s at least to be more compact and to be more aggressive. That’s the reason of doing the changes in the team. If you’re really confident, you go for it. That means that you start to press, then the midfield, then the defenders. What happened last week is that we pressed but the defenders dropped back, and then you get too much space between the lines, and that’s what we need to improve.
And then José Mourinho on his:
We are playing so well. It doesn’t matter who is playing. So that’s not a point. I just feel that maybe they are more adapted to the characteristics of this game. Everybody’s playing well. Mata, Martial. It’s not about that. It’s about the characteristics of the game. I think Martial and Mkhitaryan are faster, transporting the ball into attacking areas and attacking spaces behind defences, so that’s it.
So, a couple of changes for United, for whom Henrikh Mkhitaryan starts and Eric Bailly returns to the bench after six weeks or so out with a knee injury. Everton’s Ross Barkley is on the bench for the first time since their last game against a Manchester side, against City in mid-October. He’s joined by Phil Jagielka, who has started all but one of Everton’s league games this season.
Goodison Park weatherwatch: not a lot of clouds about.
If you’re not watching the end of Bournemouth 3-3 Liverpool (latest score), you probably should be.
Very nice Christmas-themed Twitter team there from United.
The teams
The teams are in, and these are they:
Everton: Stekelenburg, Coleman, Funes Mori, Ashley Williams, Baines, Gana, Barry, Mirallas, Cleverley, Bolasie, Lukaku. Subs: Robles, Jagielka, Deulofeu, Barkley, McCarthy, Valencia, Holgate.
Man Utd: De Gea, Valencia, Jones, Rojo, Darmian, Carrick, Pogba, Mkhitaryan, Ander Herrera, Martial, Ibrahimovic. Subs: Bailly, Mata, Lingard, Blind, Rashford, Romero, Fellaini.
Referee: Michael Oliver.
👕 | TEAM NEWS: Here is how we line up for today's game against @ManUtd. #EFCmatchday pic.twitter.com/3sXHFA4Zdd
— Everton (@Everton) December 4, 2016
Here it is - the #MUFC team for #EVEMUN... pic.twitter.com/DBcqY2jUqG
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) December 4, 2016
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Hello world!
Manchester United’s last five results in all competitions: Won, drawn, won, drawn, won. They’ll want to put an end to that little alternating run – and improve dreary league form that has brought just one win in seven – sharpish, and happily this would appear to be a fine time to be playing Everton, who have one win and four defeats from their last eight league games. Still, the home side haven’t lost at Goodison Park yet this season, having won three and drawn three.
Despite their recent averageness the teams are seventh (United) and eighth in the league, and win, lose or draw one of them will be sixth tonight. “I managed against Martínez’s Everton, Moyes’ Everton and it is always difficult,” said José Mourinho of today’s venue. “Goodison Park is beautiful. It is a great crowd and a great stadium. I had so many great matches there. Some I lost, some I won, but always a great match.” United have similarly good memories of the place, having won there 15 times in the Premier League, making it their happiest away hunting ground.
All in all, it’s looking intriguing, with some added personnel-flavoured interest coming from the recently impressive performances of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Anthony Martial, while Paul Pogba and Marouane Fellaini return from bans. Whether it will live up to this promise, well, let’s find that out together, shall we?
Simon will be here shortly. In the meantime you can read Amy Lawrence’s analysis of the current state of José Mourinho’s Manchester United project …
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