The Times
December 23, 2008
Chelsea stumble but Luiz Felipe Scolari grateful for point Everton 0 Chelsea 0
Oliver Kay
For the Manchester United players returning home from Japan after an 11½-hour flight, this was the perfect antidote to the disorientating effects of jet lag. They may have been crowned world champions in Yokohama, but there could be nothing more uplifting on their return last night than this latest frustration for Chelsea, which featured a red card for John Terry and meant that none of United’s principal rivals in the title race have won a game during their absence.
By Boxing Day, it will have been 20 days since any of the so-called “big four” in the Barclays Premier League picked up three points, but, while United return home galvanised by their success in the Club World Cup, Chelsea appear to be running into a wall.
These were the first Premier League points they have dropped on their travels all season, but it says everything about an arduous night on Merseyside that Luiz Felipe Scolari will look upon this as a point gained. With Terry sent off in the 35th minute for a late lunge on Leon Osman — correctly, despite the inevitable protests of Scolari and his players — his team-mates spent much of the evening pushed back against the ropes by an Everton side chasing a rare home win.
Everton might have claimed the victory that their efforts deserved had they had not been without all four of their recognised centre forwards through injury and had Phil Dowd, the referee, and his officials not cut short the home supporters’ celebrations when Steven Pienaar put the ball in the net with six minutes remaining.
Pienaar, pouncing as Osman’s shot was stopped by Petr Cech, was correctly deemed to have been in an offside position and in any case appeared to kick the ball from the goalkeeper’s grasp. David Moyes, the Everton manager, admitted as much afterwards, and his reaction was in stark contrast to Scolari, who, still harbouring a misplaced sense of injustice, ducked his post-match media duties in protest at Dowd’s performance, which, the odd pernickety moment aside, was first-class.
The sending-off? It was blatant. Terry, crossing the halfway line and overrunning the ball on the left-hand side, caught Osman with a tackle that left the Everton midfield player with a bruised ankle. It was only a split-second late, it was one-footed and it was an honest attempt to win the ball, but it was also wild and dangerous. That equates to a red card, regardless of intent or how many feet were raised. If Terry thinks that such a challenge is permitted these days, he clearly does not know that the laws have changed since his schooldays. Considering that most professionals struggle to get their heads around the offside trap, this would not be as surprising as it should be.
“Phil, Phil,” the Chelsea defender called as he left the field — his pleas directed at Dowd, the referee, rather than Scolari — but others carried their protests further. Lampard and Ashley Cole were soon booked for acts of frustration, respectively for dissent and failing to retreat ten yards at a free kick on the edge of their own penalty area, while eyewitnesses said that Scolari followed Dowd down the tunnel at half-time, repeatedly asking, “Are you afraid? Are you afraid?”
Dowd must have been tempted to reply that he is one referee who is not afraid to send off the England captain; as Alan Shearer and David Beckham might concede under interrogation, the position has appeared at times to carry some kind of immunity.
It was disappointing to see Chelsea losing their way like this, because they had begun the evening in impressive style. There were less than two minutes on the clock when, with Tony Hibbert napping, Ashley Cole stole into the Everton penalty area and tested Tim Howard with a rasping left-foot shot that the goalkeeper turned over the crossbar. At times in the first half they passed the ball magnificently well, but, with Nicolas Anelka having one of his less productive evenings — he was replaced by Didier Drogba at half-time, with Scolari also sending on Branislav Ivanovic for Joe Cole in a tactical reshuffle — there was no penetration. Anelka hit the post at one point, but from an offside position. Lampard had a shot deflected over the crossbar by Hibbert, but that, too, would not have counted had it gone in, with Anelka penalised for handball in the build-up.
Drogba was sent on with instructions to hold the ball up, but the forward, who will look back on 2008 as an annus horribilis, is either not fit, not interested or both. Everton did not have a single striker available and had to make do, again, with Marouane
Fellaini roaming behind Tim Cahill, but those two made far more impression on the opposing defence than either Anelka or Drogba. The towering Fellaini has the kind of presence that terrifies opposition defenders, but his two tame close-range efforts in the second half will only lend weight to the Evertonian school of thought that he needs a haircut if his headers are to carry the requisite power to trouble goalkeepers.
It was Joleon Lescott, producing his most commanding display of a disappointing season, who came closest to scoring before Pienaar’s effort. Having been restored to centre half after an injury to Joseph Yobo, he strode forward in the 77th minute to meet a Mikel Arteta corner with a perfect header, but Cech, diving high to his left, was equal to his effort. Moments later, Leighton Baines, the substitute, swung in a low cross from the left and Fellaini’s near-post flick drifted inches wide. Chelsea were living dangerously. Very dangerously as it turned out.
Everton (4-2-3-1): T Howard — A Hibbert, J Yobo (sub: L Baines, 61min), P Jagielka, J Lescott — P Neville, M Arteta — L Osman, M Fellaini, S Pienaar — T Cahill. Substitutes not used: C Nash, J Rodwell, D Gosling, J P Kissock, A van der Meyde, L Jutkiewicz.
Chelsea (4-1-4-1): P Cech — J Bosingwa, Alex, J Terry, A Cole — J O Mikel — J Cole (sub: B Ivanovic, 46), M Ballack, F Lampard, Deco (sub: W Bridge, 87) — N Anelka (sub: D Drogba, 46). Substitutes not used: C Cudicini, J Belletti, F Malouda, S Kalou. Booked: Lampard, A Cole, Ballack. Sent off: Terry.
Referee: P Dowd.
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Telegraph:
Chelsea miss chance to go top as John Terry is sent off at EvertonEverton (0) 0 Chelsea (0) 0 By Mark Ogden at Goodison Park
Referee Phil Dowd prompted fury from both Everton and Chelsea as his decisions to dismiss John Terry in the first-half, followed by his ruling out of an apparent late Everton winning goal from Steven Pienaar, marked this 0-0 draw at Goodison Park that will only serve to leave Sir Alex Ferguson smiling through his jetlag when he returns to his desk at Manchester United on Tuesday morning.
Chelsea's failure to reclaim top spot from Liverpool leaves them just six points clear of champions United, who can wipe out the deficit by winning their two games in hand following their return from the Club World Cup in Japan.
That worrying thought, and the prospect of a three-match ban for Terry with the possibility of video evidence being used against Alex following an second-half stamp on Tim Cahill, will leave Luiz Felipe Scolari feeling miserable this Christmas.
Everton's hopes of ending a 20-game winless run against Chelsea, which stretched back to November 2000, were hardly helped by the injury crisis that has left manager David Moyes without a single recognised forward.
Yakubu's ruptured Achilles tendon will keep him sidelined until next season and James Vaughan will be lucky to return from knee surgery before the end of May. So with Victor Anichebe and Louis Saha confined to the treatment room, Australian midfielder Tim Cahill was once more deployed as a stand-in centre-forward against a Chelsea defence that had conceded just one Premier League goal away from Stamford Bridge since a 1-0 defeat at Arsenal last December.
Chelsea's immaculate record away from home in the league this season had to be maintained, however, if Luiz Felipe Scolari's team were to knock Liverpool from the Christmas number one spot and Everton, despite their lack of a cutting edge, gave as good as they got in a scrappy first-half.
Had Ashley Cole done better with a second minute half-volley that forced goalkeeper Tim Howard into an improvised near post save, Chelsea would have had the advantage of a one-goal cushion against a team that had won just once in front of their own supporters so far this season.
But Howard's save denied Chelsea and Moyes's team used it as a springboard from which they dominated the early exchanges and Cahill's endeavour against John Terry and Alex resulted in him creating a long-range effort for Phil Neville, whose 25-yard shot brought an important save from Petr Cech.
The busy tenacity of Cahill and Marouane Fellaini troubled Chelsea in the spaces between the back-four and midfield, which should have been controlled by holding midfielder John Obi Mikel. The Nigerian's radar was failing to detect the danger, however, and Fellaini's presence was a problem for Chelsea.
When Scolari's team were able to claim the ball and build up a head of steam, Joe Cole and Frank Lampard did their best to create an opening for Nicolas Anelka, but on on more than one occasion, careless play by the French forward saw him trigger the linesman's flag for offside.
But with Everton denying Chelsea the upper hand that they have held on their travels this season, Terry's attempt to assert his team's authority went horribly wrong on thirty-five minutes when his high-risk challenge on Leon Osman resulted in the England captain missing the ball and catching the Everton midfielder high on his trailing leg.
Terry's chances of winning the ball were minimal, so he could have no complaints when referee Phil Dowd brandished the red card.
Scolari, whose initial reluctance to criticise match officials marked his early days at Stamford Bridge, showed no such restraint when he followed Dowd down the tunnel at half-time, with witnesses reporting that the Brazilian pursued the referee, shouting "Are you afraid? Are you afraid?," apparently questioning Dowd's sensitivity to the angry reaction of the Goodison crowd to Terry's challenge.
Compromised by the paucity of their attacking options, however, Everton were unable to mount the kind of sustained pressure required against ten men and, although possession was dominated, chances were few and far between. Only a far post Fellaini header, which was easily saved by Cech on 53 minutes, troubled the Chelsea goalkeeper as Everton attempted to make the breakthrough.
And with Didier Drogba having replaced the ineffectual Anelka at the interval, the threat posed by Chelsea's moody Ivorian could not be ignored by Moyes' defenders.
While hardly throwing caution to the wind, Everton found the courage to raise their game by a notch in the closing stages as they attempted to turn one point into three, but Cech remained an unbreachable barrier.
The orange-clad Czech reacted brilliantly to keep the ball out of the net when Lampard deflected Tony Hibbert's cross dangerously close to the top corner on 76 minutes and the goalkeeper performed more heroics seconds later when denying Joleon Lescott from Mikel Arteta's corner.
And on the one occasion when Everton did manage to beat Cech, Pienaar's inability to beat the offside trap, followed by his shot that crossed the line only after he had kicked it out of Cech's hands, left Dowd with no option but to disallow the 84th minute effort.
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Terry sees red as Chelsea miss chance for top spot
Everton 0 Chelsea 0
By Ian Herbert
At least Avram Grant condescended to march up four flights of Goodison stairs to throw a tantrum. His response to a challenging period in the perennially challenging job of managing Chelsea, eight months ago, was to sit before the press here and refuse to talk.
Luiz Felipe Scolari failed to materialise at all last night, letting it be known through his head of media, Steve Atkins, that he would not be speaking as he had "a number of issues with a number of the decisions throughout the game." The entire Chelsea management team, Atkins declared, "feel it better that they don't say anything rather than cause trouble."
The prime point of contention was the 35th-minute dismissal of Scolari's captain, John Terry, and though resisting temptation to publicly criticise referee Phil Dowd is what the Respect campaign is supposed to be about, the peremptory way the club refused to enter any discussion on another tame display – this latest failure to take over at the top of the table means their points tally is now six in five games – pretty much reflected the way Chelsea had conducted themselves all night.
Terry's dismissal came out of the blue, at a time when Chelsea seemed to have shown the temperament to maintain poise among some fairly rudimentary challenges from Phil Neville and Tim Cahill. But his tackle was a dire one, he and Leon Osman thundering towards each other to contest a ball near the halfway line on 35 minutes and Terry lunging in with his right boot. He caught the Everton midfielder at shin height and left him crumpled on the pitch with an ankle injury which makes him a doubt for the trip to Middlesbrough on Boxing Day. Dowd delayed, first taking directions from his linesman, but Terry's fate was in little doubt from the moment he made the challenge. "I've not seen the sending off yet, but my first reaction was [that] it was reckless," said Moyes, who was a few yards away when the tackle was made. "In my day [you] would have enjoyed a tackle like that but you [can't] now."
The sending off, the third of Terry's career, asks more questions of the temperament of an individual who does not conduct himself like an England captain on occasions and was considerably worse than the straight red, later rescinded on appeal, which he earned at Manchester City on 13 September. The club had not decided whether to appeal it last night and Terry looks likely to miss the games against West Bromwich, Fulham and Southend. But if and when Scolari comes around from his sense of bitter indignation it should his players' response to the dismissal which alarms him most.
The initial protestations were long and loud, the indignation all the greater when Cahill jumped with his arms up into a challenge on Michael Ballack two minutes after Terry's departure. When Dowd correctly desisted from booking Cahill, then awarded the Australian a soft free kick for Alex's challenge on the edge of the Chelsea box, all hell let loose. First Frank Lampard, then Ashley Cole were booked for their unsavoury protests. Michael Ballack later joined them in the book, demanding of the referee that an Everton wall move back. Dowd marched out the ten paces to prove his point. Chelsea might have left Merseyside playing the high and mighty but Dowd had a good night.
Of course, all concerned might have reacted differently had Chelsea looked anything but a dislocated side. Their only win in the last six was against West Bromwich and they were unable to put Everton keeper Tim Howard under any pressure in the second half. Scolari looked like a man shuffling his pack and not finding any aces, starting the match with Nicolas Anelka, swapping to Didier Drogba at half-time and finding one as undynamic as the other.
Everton's resources could barely have been lesser. Moyes currently has no fit strikers to speak of at all. He started with Cahill up front for a second week and it showed. Even by Moyes' own admission, Everton's routes through to goal were limited. "We tried to go around them because we couldn't go through the middle of the park," he said. "We got a lot of crosses in from the edge of the box. If anything we should have got to the byline more."
The two accurate crosses Osman put up in the first half found tame headers from Cahill and the abundant mop of Marouane Fellaini and bore Moyes' modesty out.
Chelsea offered minimal threat of their own, though. Their best chance was their first, Ashley Cole unleashing a punishing 20-yard shot only two minutes in after Hibbert allowed him a fraction too much time, which Tim Howard pushed over his bar. Everton lost Joseph Yobo to a hamstring injury, which makes him a doubt for Boxing Day too, but as the evening wore on Goodison justifiably sensed an upset.
Two Hibbert crosses had brought the best from Cech when seven minutes from time Fellaini crossed and Pienaar, who had stepped over the ball to allow Osman to shoot, followed the effort in to squeeze the ball home. He was offside and Cech had both hands on the ball when he forced it in the net and Dowd rightly called in Chelsea's favour. It was with a mild sense of relief that Chelsea left the field, still one point behind Liverpool in the title race that no-one appears to want to lead.
Everton (4-4-1-1): Howard; Hibbert, Yobo (Baines, 61), Jagielka, Lescott; Osman, Neville, Arteta, Pienaar; Fellaini; Cahill. Substitutes not used: Nash (gk), Van der Meyde, Rodwell, Jutkiewicz, Gosling, Kissock.
Chelsea (4-1-4-1): Cech; Bosingwa, Alex, Terry, A Cole; Mikel; J Cole (Ivanovic, h-t), Ballack, Lampard, Deco (Bridge, 87); Anelka (Drogba, h-t). Substitutes not used: Malouda, Kalou, Cudicini (gk), Belletti.
Referee: P Dowd (Staffordshire).
Booked: Chelsea Lampard, A Cole, Ballack.
Sent off: Chelsea Terry (35).
Man of the match: Hibbert.
Attendance: 35,655.
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Guardian
Terry sees red as seething Chelsea miss going topEverton 0 Chelsea 0
Kevin McCarra at Goodison Park
John Terry's foul on Leon Osman that resulted in the Chelsea captain being shown a red card. Photograph: Mike Egerton/Empics Sport/PA Photos
Only one point was added to Chelsea's total, but there were still blessings to count. The visitors were reduced to 10 men for nearly an hour because of the red card for their captain, John Terry. In adversity their survival instinct resurfaced and the appraisal that Luiz Felipe Scolari makes of this night will carry a tinge of relief, even if he was angry about the officiating.
Terry was dismissed in the 34th minute for a lunge that sank his right boot into Leon Osman's right shin. The decision was elementary for the referee, Phil Dowd, who showed a straight red card. Despite Terry's aggression, he has been sent off a mere three times in his career.
The previous expulsion, at Manchester City this season, was overturned but there can be no reprieve on this occasion. This has at least been well-timed recklessness. He will be suspended against West Bromwich Albion and Fulham before coming back to face Manchester United at Old Trafford on January 11.
None the less the champions will be in good humour. The fellow members of the customary top four have faltered in the league while United were engaged in the Club World Cup. That is reminiscent of season 1999-00, when United came back to these shores from the Intercontinental Cup and retained the title.
A perfect record in Premier League away games for Scolari was cracked here but this damage must be tolerable to the Brazilian. All the same, his men were far from cool-headed. Soon after Terry had gone off, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole were both cautioned for dissent at a set piece. That conduct was a combination of the distasteful and the futile.
In an offbeat incident, Michael Ballack would also be booked for his unfounded complaint that an Everton wall had not retreated sufficiently at another free-kick. There is no risk, at any rate, of these Chelsea individuals lacking passion.
Openings for Everton were not plentiful. With 10 minutes to go Chelsea were nearly broken by a Marouane Fellaini backheel from the substitute Leighton Baines' cross, but it went wide. Later still, Steven Pienaar did find the net but he had been in an offside position that allowed him to force the ball home. The Everton manager, David Moyes, agreed with that verdict by the officials.
Moyes is still in search of a win over Chelsea. His side have also been restricted to a single win at home this season and that testifies to the industrious but predictable approach to work. The budget at Everton does not run to spectacular flair. Although they did not capitalise on the rare chance put before them, it was hard to think what more could have been offered by an honest team with a narrow repertoire.
Clubs such as Everton need some means to compensate for the imbalance in resources and Terry's departure did not quite suffice. Prior to that the impression was of Chelsea building an ascendancy. There had been an unwelcome reminder for Everton of how suddenly things can go wrong in the third minute when Tony Hibbert's mistake allowed Ashley Cole a drive, dealt with well by Tim Howard.
In principle, Moyes's side ought to have been in command once they had superiority in numbers. Scolari had some scheming to do. For the second half, Branislav Ivanovic came on take up position in defence and in attack the more muscular Didier Drogba took over from Nicolas Anelka in the undermanned side.
Everton did strive to grasp an unusual opportunity. Play poured down the flanks against a stretched Chelsea defence and Hibbert found the head of Fellaini in the 52nd minute, although the save from Petr Cech was elementary.
Everton would have had the rare nature of this opportunity impressed upon them at the interval. Some disruption had to be borne when Joseph Yobo limped off. Baines came on at left-back, with Joleon Lescott relocating to central defence.
There was no apparent need to brood on the composition of the Everton back four when it was Chelsea's which was regularly under inspection. The tempo quickened and Fellaini was advanced to centre-forward, where his height was a concern to the visitors as Moyes's team sought to mount a barrage of crosses.
The visitors respond strongly to adversity, but this outcome continues a spell of form which has been patchy even when there has been a full line-up on the pitch.
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Mail:
Everton 0 Chelsea 0: Skipper Terry off as Chelsea flop at Goodisonby JOHN EDWARDS
He shook his head in dismay and disappeared down the tunnel at the final whistle, but Luiz Felipe Scolari may just consider his Chelsea side passed one of the most searching tests of their Barclays Premier League title credentials so far at Goodison Park last night.
The Chelsea manager has never been one to hide his emotions and to say he was not best pleased with referee Phil Dowd’s decision to punish a scything 35th-minute challenge by John Terry with a straight red card would be putting it mildly.
Remonstrating in his usual expansive arm-waving way, he evidently waited for Dowd in the tunnel at half-time and, according to eye-witnesses, asked him: ‘Were you afraid of the crowd? Were you afraid?’ In the cold light of day, he might reflect on his skipper’s airborne attempt to win the ball and conclude that, for all the absence of any malice, it might not have been the most advisable course of action.
Certainly not given the inevitable response from home fans and the current climate of such challenges incurring the wrath of the authorities.
He may also concede that the response of his 10-man team for the remaining 55 minutes, as they survived a disallowed goal and several near-misses in a second-half Everton bombardment, suggests they have the resilience to match Liverpool and Manchester United all the way in the race for the crown.
Chelsea began proceedings with an eye on smashing Tottenham’s 48-year record of launching a topflight campaign with eight straight away wins — and also reclaiming top spot from Liverpool for Christmas — but were soon forced to modify their aims, once Terry found himself on the wrong end of Dowd’s occasionally erratic officiating.
There had been little to choose between the teams when Terry fixed his sights on a bouncing ball near the halfway line and hurled himself into the task of reaching it before the onrushing Leon Osman.
Unfortunately for the Chelsea skipper, and Osman, the execution left something to be desired as a flailing boot made contact with Osman and left the Everton man crumpled in agony on the turf.
Players from both sides milled round Dowd in an attempt to influence his ruling but were waved away as the official took Terry to one side, collected his thoughts for a moment, then brandished a red card at the crestfallen England defender. Terry looked genuinely stunned as he twice called out ‘Phil’ in a vain effort to plead his case before making his way off.
It was clearly hard to take for the most committed of defenders, but Terry at least had the good grace to inquire about Osman’s well-being, a gesture clearly appreciated by the stricken midfielder.
Michael Ballack appeared to be seeking retribution of his own two minutes later as he went down clutching his face following an innocuous challenge from Tim Cahill. He was fooling no one, least of all Dowd, although the official was later to miss an apparent stamp by Alex on Cahill.
Harshly though Scolari felt his side had been treated, he could only trust they would stand up to the test of containing an Everton side sensing an upset and roared on by the most partisan of crowds.
Challenges do not come much more daunting, but his faith was not misplaced as Chelsea threw a protective cordon round goalkeeper Petr Cech and saw the giant Czech Republic man rise to the occasion whenever it was breached.
The Chelsea keeper clawed a flashing header from Marouane Fellaini out of the air from a 52ndminute cross by Tony Hibbert and produced a brilliant stretching save to spare Frank Lampard’s blushes after the England midfielder inadvertently deflected another Hibbert cross towards the roof of his own net 24 minutes later.
He was equal to the task again in the 77th minute, tipping a Joleon Lescott header round the post from Mikel Arteta’s corner as Everton maintained their aerial bombardment.
When he finally looked to have been beaten just six minutes from time Dowd, of all people, came to his rescue.
The officials saved a point for Chelsea when mounting Everton pressure appeared ready to crack the away side’s resolve. Steven Pienaar and Cahill both dummied a low cross from Fellaini and as panic rose in a congested Chelsea area, Osman hit a low drive that was parried but still looked to be bobbling over the line.
As Cech flung himself back and desperately tried to lay a hand on it, Pienaar sprang forward and forced it into the back of the net before wheeling away to take the acclaim of an ecstatic home support. Even the giant scoreboard at the opposite end started flashing GOAL, only for Dowd to agree with his assistant and rule offside.
Cech revealed that he had been injured in the melee, saying: ‘I just managed to grab the ball on the line when their players slid in and hit my arm. I can’t take my glove off at the moment, so we will have to see what state my hand is in.
‘It’s a pity we missed out on the top, but this is a hard enough place to come to with 11 men. To have kept the ball so well and controlled the game with only 10 says a lot for us.’
Still seething from the loss of Terry for Premier League games with Fulham and West Bromwich and an FA Cup-tie with Southend, Scolari made a rapid exit at the end, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he went.
Once the red mist has cleared, though, he may just look back on a frantic night of drama and incident with a quiet smile of satisfaction at the way his team came through a searching test of their title mettle.
December 23, 2008
Chelsea stumble but Luiz Felipe Scolari grateful for point Everton 0 Chelsea 0
Oliver Kay
For the Manchester United players returning home from Japan after an 11½-hour flight, this was the perfect antidote to the disorientating effects of jet lag. They may have been crowned world champions in Yokohama, but there could be nothing more uplifting on their return last night than this latest frustration for Chelsea, which featured a red card for John Terry and meant that none of United’s principal rivals in the title race have won a game during their absence.
By Boxing Day, it will have been 20 days since any of the so-called “big four” in the Barclays Premier League picked up three points, but, while United return home galvanised by their success in the Club World Cup, Chelsea appear to be running into a wall.
These were the first Premier League points they have dropped on their travels all season, but it says everything about an arduous night on Merseyside that Luiz Felipe Scolari will look upon this as a point gained. With Terry sent off in the 35th minute for a late lunge on Leon Osman — correctly, despite the inevitable protests of Scolari and his players — his team-mates spent much of the evening pushed back against the ropes by an Everton side chasing a rare home win.
Everton might have claimed the victory that their efforts deserved had they had not been without all four of their recognised centre forwards through injury and had Phil Dowd, the referee, and his officials not cut short the home supporters’ celebrations when Steven Pienaar put the ball in the net with six minutes remaining.
Pienaar, pouncing as Osman’s shot was stopped by Petr Cech, was correctly deemed to have been in an offside position and in any case appeared to kick the ball from the goalkeeper’s grasp. David Moyes, the Everton manager, admitted as much afterwards, and his reaction was in stark contrast to Scolari, who, still harbouring a misplaced sense of injustice, ducked his post-match media duties in protest at Dowd’s performance, which, the odd pernickety moment aside, was first-class.
The sending-off? It was blatant. Terry, crossing the halfway line and overrunning the ball on the left-hand side, caught Osman with a tackle that left the Everton midfield player with a bruised ankle. It was only a split-second late, it was one-footed and it was an honest attempt to win the ball, but it was also wild and dangerous. That equates to a red card, regardless of intent or how many feet were raised. If Terry thinks that such a challenge is permitted these days, he clearly does not know that the laws have changed since his schooldays. Considering that most professionals struggle to get their heads around the offside trap, this would not be as surprising as it should be.
“Phil, Phil,” the Chelsea defender called as he left the field — his pleas directed at Dowd, the referee, rather than Scolari — but others carried their protests further. Lampard and Ashley Cole were soon booked for acts of frustration, respectively for dissent and failing to retreat ten yards at a free kick on the edge of their own penalty area, while eyewitnesses said that Scolari followed Dowd down the tunnel at half-time, repeatedly asking, “Are you afraid? Are you afraid?”
Dowd must have been tempted to reply that he is one referee who is not afraid to send off the England captain; as Alan Shearer and David Beckham might concede under interrogation, the position has appeared at times to carry some kind of immunity.
It was disappointing to see Chelsea losing their way like this, because they had begun the evening in impressive style. There were less than two minutes on the clock when, with Tony Hibbert napping, Ashley Cole stole into the Everton penalty area and tested Tim Howard with a rasping left-foot shot that the goalkeeper turned over the crossbar. At times in the first half they passed the ball magnificently well, but, with Nicolas Anelka having one of his less productive evenings — he was replaced by Didier Drogba at half-time, with Scolari also sending on Branislav Ivanovic for Joe Cole in a tactical reshuffle — there was no penetration. Anelka hit the post at one point, but from an offside position. Lampard had a shot deflected over the crossbar by Hibbert, but that, too, would not have counted had it gone in, with Anelka penalised for handball in the build-up.
Drogba was sent on with instructions to hold the ball up, but the forward, who will look back on 2008 as an annus horribilis, is either not fit, not interested or both. Everton did not have a single striker available and had to make do, again, with Marouane
Fellaini roaming behind Tim Cahill, but those two made far more impression on the opposing defence than either Anelka or Drogba. The towering Fellaini has the kind of presence that terrifies opposition defenders, but his two tame close-range efforts in the second half will only lend weight to the Evertonian school of thought that he needs a haircut if his headers are to carry the requisite power to trouble goalkeepers.
It was Joleon Lescott, producing his most commanding display of a disappointing season, who came closest to scoring before Pienaar’s effort. Having been restored to centre half after an injury to Joseph Yobo, he strode forward in the 77th minute to meet a Mikel Arteta corner with a perfect header, but Cech, diving high to his left, was equal to his effort. Moments later, Leighton Baines, the substitute, swung in a low cross from the left and Fellaini’s near-post flick drifted inches wide. Chelsea were living dangerously. Very dangerously as it turned out.
Everton (4-2-3-1): T Howard — A Hibbert, J Yobo (sub: L Baines, 61min), P Jagielka, J Lescott — P Neville, M Arteta — L Osman, M Fellaini, S Pienaar — T Cahill. Substitutes not used: C Nash, J Rodwell, D Gosling, J P Kissock, A van der Meyde, L Jutkiewicz.
Chelsea (4-1-4-1): P Cech — J Bosingwa, Alex, J Terry, A Cole — J O Mikel — J Cole (sub: B Ivanovic, 46), M Ballack, F Lampard, Deco (sub: W Bridge, 87) — N Anelka (sub: D Drogba, 46). Substitutes not used: C Cudicini, J Belletti, F Malouda, S Kalou. Booked: Lampard, A Cole, Ballack. Sent off: Terry.
Referee: P Dowd.
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Telegraph:
Chelsea miss chance to go top as John Terry is sent off at EvertonEverton (0) 0 Chelsea (0) 0 By Mark Ogden at Goodison Park
Referee Phil Dowd prompted fury from both Everton and Chelsea as his decisions to dismiss John Terry in the first-half, followed by his ruling out of an apparent late Everton winning goal from Steven Pienaar, marked this 0-0 draw at Goodison Park that will only serve to leave Sir Alex Ferguson smiling through his jetlag when he returns to his desk at Manchester United on Tuesday morning.
Chelsea's failure to reclaim top spot from Liverpool leaves them just six points clear of champions United, who can wipe out the deficit by winning their two games in hand following their return from the Club World Cup in Japan.
That worrying thought, and the prospect of a three-match ban for Terry with the possibility of video evidence being used against Alex following an second-half stamp on Tim Cahill, will leave Luiz Felipe Scolari feeling miserable this Christmas.
Everton's hopes of ending a 20-game winless run against Chelsea, which stretched back to November 2000, were hardly helped by the injury crisis that has left manager David Moyes without a single recognised forward.
Yakubu's ruptured Achilles tendon will keep him sidelined until next season and James Vaughan will be lucky to return from knee surgery before the end of May. So with Victor Anichebe and Louis Saha confined to the treatment room, Australian midfielder Tim Cahill was once more deployed as a stand-in centre-forward against a Chelsea defence that had conceded just one Premier League goal away from Stamford Bridge since a 1-0 defeat at Arsenal last December.
Chelsea's immaculate record away from home in the league this season had to be maintained, however, if Luiz Felipe Scolari's team were to knock Liverpool from the Christmas number one spot and Everton, despite their lack of a cutting edge, gave as good as they got in a scrappy first-half.
Had Ashley Cole done better with a second minute half-volley that forced goalkeeper Tim Howard into an improvised near post save, Chelsea would have had the advantage of a one-goal cushion against a team that had won just once in front of their own supporters so far this season.
But Howard's save denied Chelsea and Moyes's team used it as a springboard from which they dominated the early exchanges and Cahill's endeavour against John Terry and Alex resulted in him creating a long-range effort for Phil Neville, whose 25-yard shot brought an important save from Petr Cech.
The busy tenacity of Cahill and Marouane Fellaini troubled Chelsea in the spaces between the back-four and midfield, which should have been controlled by holding midfielder John Obi Mikel. The Nigerian's radar was failing to detect the danger, however, and Fellaini's presence was a problem for Chelsea.
When Scolari's team were able to claim the ball and build up a head of steam, Joe Cole and Frank Lampard did their best to create an opening for Nicolas Anelka, but on on more than one occasion, careless play by the French forward saw him trigger the linesman's flag for offside.
But with Everton denying Chelsea the upper hand that they have held on their travels this season, Terry's attempt to assert his team's authority went horribly wrong on thirty-five minutes when his high-risk challenge on Leon Osman resulted in the England captain missing the ball and catching the Everton midfielder high on his trailing leg.
Terry's chances of winning the ball were minimal, so he could have no complaints when referee Phil Dowd brandished the red card.
Scolari, whose initial reluctance to criticise match officials marked his early days at Stamford Bridge, showed no such restraint when he followed Dowd down the tunnel at half-time, with witnesses reporting that the Brazilian pursued the referee, shouting "Are you afraid? Are you afraid?," apparently questioning Dowd's sensitivity to the angry reaction of the Goodison crowd to Terry's challenge.
Compromised by the paucity of their attacking options, however, Everton were unable to mount the kind of sustained pressure required against ten men and, although possession was dominated, chances were few and far between. Only a far post Fellaini header, which was easily saved by Cech on 53 minutes, troubled the Chelsea goalkeeper as Everton attempted to make the breakthrough.
And with Didier Drogba having replaced the ineffectual Anelka at the interval, the threat posed by Chelsea's moody Ivorian could not be ignored by Moyes' defenders.
While hardly throwing caution to the wind, Everton found the courage to raise their game by a notch in the closing stages as they attempted to turn one point into three, but Cech remained an unbreachable barrier.
The orange-clad Czech reacted brilliantly to keep the ball out of the net when Lampard deflected Tony Hibbert's cross dangerously close to the top corner on 76 minutes and the goalkeeper performed more heroics seconds later when denying Joleon Lescott from Mikel Arteta's corner.
And on the one occasion when Everton did manage to beat Cech, Pienaar's inability to beat the offside trap, followed by his shot that crossed the line only after he had kicked it out of Cech's hands, left Dowd with no option but to disallow the 84th minute effort.
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Terry sees red as Chelsea miss chance for top spot
Everton 0 Chelsea 0
By Ian Herbert
At least Avram Grant condescended to march up four flights of Goodison stairs to throw a tantrum. His response to a challenging period in the perennially challenging job of managing Chelsea, eight months ago, was to sit before the press here and refuse to talk.
Luiz Felipe Scolari failed to materialise at all last night, letting it be known through his head of media, Steve Atkins, that he would not be speaking as he had "a number of issues with a number of the decisions throughout the game." The entire Chelsea management team, Atkins declared, "feel it better that they don't say anything rather than cause trouble."
The prime point of contention was the 35th-minute dismissal of Scolari's captain, John Terry, and though resisting temptation to publicly criticise referee Phil Dowd is what the Respect campaign is supposed to be about, the peremptory way the club refused to enter any discussion on another tame display – this latest failure to take over at the top of the table means their points tally is now six in five games – pretty much reflected the way Chelsea had conducted themselves all night.
Terry's dismissal came out of the blue, at a time when Chelsea seemed to have shown the temperament to maintain poise among some fairly rudimentary challenges from Phil Neville and Tim Cahill. But his tackle was a dire one, he and Leon Osman thundering towards each other to contest a ball near the halfway line on 35 minutes and Terry lunging in with his right boot. He caught the Everton midfielder at shin height and left him crumpled on the pitch with an ankle injury which makes him a doubt for the trip to Middlesbrough on Boxing Day. Dowd delayed, first taking directions from his linesman, but Terry's fate was in little doubt from the moment he made the challenge. "I've not seen the sending off yet, but my first reaction was [that] it was reckless," said Moyes, who was a few yards away when the tackle was made. "In my day [you] would have enjoyed a tackle like that but you [can't] now."
The sending off, the third of Terry's career, asks more questions of the temperament of an individual who does not conduct himself like an England captain on occasions and was considerably worse than the straight red, later rescinded on appeal, which he earned at Manchester City on 13 September. The club had not decided whether to appeal it last night and Terry looks likely to miss the games against West Bromwich, Fulham and Southend. But if and when Scolari comes around from his sense of bitter indignation it should his players' response to the dismissal which alarms him most.
The initial protestations were long and loud, the indignation all the greater when Cahill jumped with his arms up into a challenge on Michael Ballack two minutes after Terry's departure. When Dowd correctly desisted from booking Cahill, then awarded the Australian a soft free kick for Alex's challenge on the edge of the Chelsea box, all hell let loose. First Frank Lampard, then Ashley Cole were booked for their unsavoury protests. Michael Ballack later joined them in the book, demanding of the referee that an Everton wall move back. Dowd marched out the ten paces to prove his point. Chelsea might have left Merseyside playing the high and mighty but Dowd had a good night.
Of course, all concerned might have reacted differently had Chelsea looked anything but a dislocated side. Their only win in the last six was against West Bromwich and they were unable to put Everton keeper Tim Howard under any pressure in the second half. Scolari looked like a man shuffling his pack and not finding any aces, starting the match with Nicolas Anelka, swapping to Didier Drogba at half-time and finding one as undynamic as the other.
Everton's resources could barely have been lesser. Moyes currently has no fit strikers to speak of at all. He started with Cahill up front for a second week and it showed. Even by Moyes' own admission, Everton's routes through to goal were limited. "We tried to go around them because we couldn't go through the middle of the park," he said. "We got a lot of crosses in from the edge of the box. If anything we should have got to the byline more."
The two accurate crosses Osman put up in the first half found tame headers from Cahill and the abundant mop of Marouane Fellaini and bore Moyes' modesty out.
Chelsea offered minimal threat of their own, though. Their best chance was their first, Ashley Cole unleashing a punishing 20-yard shot only two minutes in after Hibbert allowed him a fraction too much time, which Tim Howard pushed over his bar. Everton lost Joseph Yobo to a hamstring injury, which makes him a doubt for Boxing Day too, but as the evening wore on Goodison justifiably sensed an upset.
Two Hibbert crosses had brought the best from Cech when seven minutes from time Fellaini crossed and Pienaar, who had stepped over the ball to allow Osman to shoot, followed the effort in to squeeze the ball home. He was offside and Cech had both hands on the ball when he forced it in the net and Dowd rightly called in Chelsea's favour. It was with a mild sense of relief that Chelsea left the field, still one point behind Liverpool in the title race that no-one appears to want to lead.
Everton (4-4-1-1): Howard; Hibbert, Yobo (Baines, 61), Jagielka, Lescott; Osman, Neville, Arteta, Pienaar; Fellaini; Cahill. Substitutes not used: Nash (gk), Van der Meyde, Rodwell, Jutkiewicz, Gosling, Kissock.
Chelsea (4-1-4-1): Cech; Bosingwa, Alex, Terry, A Cole; Mikel; J Cole (Ivanovic, h-t), Ballack, Lampard, Deco (Bridge, 87); Anelka (Drogba, h-t). Substitutes not used: Malouda, Kalou, Cudicini (gk), Belletti.
Referee: P Dowd (Staffordshire).
Booked: Chelsea Lampard, A Cole, Ballack.
Sent off: Chelsea Terry (35).
Man of the match: Hibbert.
Attendance: 35,655.
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Guardian
Terry sees red as seething Chelsea miss going topEverton 0 Chelsea 0
Kevin McCarra at Goodison Park
John Terry's foul on Leon Osman that resulted in the Chelsea captain being shown a red card. Photograph: Mike Egerton/Empics Sport/PA Photos
Only one point was added to Chelsea's total, but there were still blessings to count. The visitors were reduced to 10 men for nearly an hour because of the red card for their captain, John Terry. In adversity their survival instinct resurfaced and the appraisal that Luiz Felipe Scolari makes of this night will carry a tinge of relief, even if he was angry about the officiating.
Terry was dismissed in the 34th minute for a lunge that sank his right boot into Leon Osman's right shin. The decision was elementary for the referee, Phil Dowd, who showed a straight red card. Despite Terry's aggression, he has been sent off a mere three times in his career.
The previous expulsion, at Manchester City this season, was overturned but there can be no reprieve on this occasion. This has at least been well-timed recklessness. He will be suspended against West Bromwich Albion and Fulham before coming back to face Manchester United at Old Trafford on January 11.
None the less the champions will be in good humour. The fellow members of the customary top four have faltered in the league while United were engaged in the Club World Cup. That is reminiscent of season 1999-00, when United came back to these shores from the Intercontinental Cup and retained the title.
A perfect record in Premier League away games for Scolari was cracked here but this damage must be tolerable to the Brazilian. All the same, his men were far from cool-headed. Soon after Terry had gone off, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole were both cautioned for dissent at a set piece. That conduct was a combination of the distasteful and the futile.
In an offbeat incident, Michael Ballack would also be booked for his unfounded complaint that an Everton wall had not retreated sufficiently at another free-kick. There is no risk, at any rate, of these Chelsea individuals lacking passion.
Openings for Everton were not plentiful. With 10 minutes to go Chelsea were nearly broken by a Marouane Fellaini backheel from the substitute Leighton Baines' cross, but it went wide. Later still, Steven Pienaar did find the net but he had been in an offside position that allowed him to force the ball home. The Everton manager, David Moyes, agreed with that verdict by the officials.
Moyes is still in search of a win over Chelsea. His side have also been restricted to a single win at home this season and that testifies to the industrious but predictable approach to work. The budget at Everton does not run to spectacular flair. Although they did not capitalise on the rare chance put before them, it was hard to think what more could have been offered by an honest team with a narrow repertoire.
Clubs such as Everton need some means to compensate for the imbalance in resources and Terry's departure did not quite suffice. Prior to that the impression was of Chelsea building an ascendancy. There had been an unwelcome reminder for Everton of how suddenly things can go wrong in the third minute when Tony Hibbert's mistake allowed Ashley Cole a drive, dealt with well by Tim Howard.
In principle, Moyes's side ought to have been in command once they had superiority in numbers. Scolari had some scheming to do. For the second half, Branislav Ivanovic came on take up position in defence and in attack the more muscular Didier Drogba took over from Nicolas Anelka in the undermanned side.
Everton did strive to grasp an unusual opportunity. Play poured down the flanks against a stretched Chelsea defence and Hibbert found the head of Fellaini in the 52nd minute, although the save from Petr Cech was elementary.
Everton would have had the rare nature of this opportunity impressed upon them at the interval. Some disruption had to be borne when Joseph Yobo limped off. Baines came on at left-back, with Joleon Lescott relocating to central defence.
There was no apparent need to brood on the composition of the Everton back four when it was Chelsea's which was regularly under inspection. The tempo quickened and Fellaini was advanced to centre-forward, where his height was a concern to the visitors as Moyes's team sought to mount a barrage of crosses.
The visitors respond strongly to adversity, but this outcome continues a spell of form which has been patchy even when there has been a full line-up on the pitch.
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Mail:
Everton 0 Chelsea 0: Skipper Terry off as Chelsea flop at Goodisonby JOHN EDWARDS
He shook his head in dismay and disappeared down the tunnel at the final whistle, but Luiz Felipe Scolari may just consider his Chelsea side passed one of the most searching tests of their Barclays Premier League title credentials so far at Goodison Park last night.
The Chelsea manager has never been one to hide his emotions and to say he was not best pleased with referee Phil Dowd’s decision to punish a scything 35th-minute challenge by John Terry with a straight red card would be putting it mildly.
Remonstrating in his usual expansive arm-waving way, he evidently waited for Dowd in the tunnel at half-time and, according to eye-witnesses, asked him: ‘Were you afraid of the crowd? Were you afraid?’ In the cold light of day, he might reflect on his skipper’s airborne attempt to win the ball and conclude that, for all the absence of any malice, it might not have been the most advisable course of action.
Certainly not given the inevitable response from home fans and the current climate of such challenges incurring the wrath of the authorities.
He may also concede that the response of his 10-man team for the remaining 55 minutes, as they survived a disallowed goal and several near-misses in a second-half Everton bombardment, suggests they have the resilience to match Liverpool and Manchester United all the way in the race for the crown.
Chelsea began proceedings with an eye on smashing Tottenham’s 48-year record of launching a topflight campaign with eight straight away wins — and also reclaiming top spot from Liverpool for Christmas — but were soon forced to modify their aims, once Terry found himself on the wrong end of Dowd’s occasionally erratic officiating.
There had been little to choose between the teams when Terry fixed his sights on a bouncing ball near the halfway line and hurled himself into the task of reaching it before the onrushing Leon Osman.
Unfortunately for the Chelsea skipper, and Osman, the execution left something to be desired as a flailing boot made contact with Osman and left the Everton man crumpled in agony on the turf.
Players from both sides milled round Dowd in an attempt to influence his ruling but were waved away as the official took Terry to one side, collected his thoughts for a moment, then brandished a red card at the crestfallen England defender. Terry looked genuinely stunned as he twice called out ‘Phil’ in a vain effort to plead his case before making his way off.
It was clearly hard to take for the most committed of defenders, but Terry at least had the good grace to inquire about Osman’s well-being, a gesture clearly appreciated by the stricken midfielder.
Michael Ballack appeared to be seeking retribution of his own two minutes later as he went down clutching his face following an innocuous challenge from Tim Cahill. He was fooling no one, least of all Dowd, although the official was later to miss an apparent stamp by Alex on Cahill.
Harshly though Scolari felt his side had been treated, he could only trust they would stand up to the test of containing an Everton side sensing an upset and roared on by the most partisan of crowds.
Challenges do not come much more daunting, but his faith was not misplaced as Chelsea threw a protective cordon round goalkeeper Petr Cech and saw the giant Czech Republic man rise to the occasion whenever it was breached.
The Chelsea keeper clawed a flashing header from Marouane Fellaini out of the air from a 52ndminute cross by Tony Hibbert and produced a brilliant stretching save to spare Frank Lampard’s blushes after the England midfielder inadvertently deflected another Hibbert cross towards the roof of his own net 24 minutes later.
He was equal to the task again in the 77th minute, tipping a Joleon Lescott header round the post from Mikel Arteta’s corner as Everton maintained their aerial bombardment.
When he finally looked to have been beaten just six minutes from time Dowd, of all people, came to his rescue.
The officials saved a point for Chelsea when mounting Everton pressure appeared ready to crack the away side’s resolve. Steven Pienaar and Cahill both dummied a low cross from Fellaini and as panic rose in a congested Chelsea area, Osman hit a low drive that was parried but still looked to be bobbling over the line.
As Cech flung himself back and desperately tried to lay a hand on it, Pienaar sprang forward and forced it into the back of the net before wheeling away to take the acclaim of an ecstatic home support. Even the giant scoreboard at the opposite end started flashing GOAL, only for Dowd to agree with his assistant and rule offside.
Cech revealed that he had been injured in the melee, saying: ‘I just managed to grab the ball on the line when their players slid in and hit my arm. I can’t take my glove off at the moment, so we will have to see what state my hand is in.
‘It’s a pity we missed out on the top, but this is a hard enough place to come to with 11 men. To have kept the ball so well and controlled the game with only 10 says a lot for us.’
Still seething from the loss of Terry for Premier League games with Fulham and West Bromwich and an FA Cup-tie with Southend, Scolari made a rapid exit at the end, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he went.
Once the red mist has cleared, though, he may just look back on a frantic night of drama and incident with a quiet smile of satisfaction at the way his team came through a searching test of their title mettle.
