Thursday, 17 September 2009

Everton 4-0 AEK Athens


Everton cruised past AEK Athens 4-0 in the Group One Europe League encounter at Goodison Park, to give the toffee's only their second win of the season, so far.

Joseph Yobo's header saw Everton take an early lead and was soon added to when new-boy Sylvain Distin scored their second from another set-piece.

Steven Pienaar's drive and a close-range effort from on-loan Manchester City striker Jo gave Everton all three-points and sent them to the summit of their group.

The home side made three changes from the side that lost 2-1 at Fulham on Sunday, as Dan Gosling, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov and Marouane Fellaini were drafted in to the starting XI.

Summer-signings Jo and Distin also kept their places in the side but the injured duo of Phil Neville and Tony Hibbert missed out.

David Moyes was quoted in the run-up to the game as saying he wanted his side to get a good result to kick-start their poor start to the season and in the first half he would have been more than pleased with what he saw.

The opening goal of the match came in the 10th minute from a corner won by South African Pienaar, after the midfielder had a low left footed shot turned around the post by Athens keeper Sebatian Saja.

Recent-arrival Bilyaletdinov then swung in the resultant corner and Yobo found himself with a free-header at the far post to give the home side the lead.

Soon after that goal, Moyes' team doubled their advantage, from a corner again, when Distin stuck a leg out at the far post to prod the ball home from a few yards out.

AEK then had their first real chance of the match just after the 20-minute mark when captain Pantelis Kefas hit a sweetly-struck right footed effort just over Tim Howard's bar, after finding himself in space.

Everton found themselves trying to kill-of the game and nearly did so after Jo's headed effort landed on top of the Athens net, after some poor defending from the visitors.

On the half-hour mark Athens midfielder Tam Nsaliwa, and early replacement for the injured Geraldo Alves, drove a curving shot just over the bar, showing their hosts that they can cause them problems.

Seconds after, Everton were close to making their lead consist of three-goals, when Jo headed a Distin long ball agonizingly wide of the post.

Ten minutes before the break Pienaar gave Everton a 3-0 lead, as he hit a low pile-driver from 30-yards out which keeper Saja had no chance of stopping.

At half-time new signing Lucas Neill, who had earlier on in the day completed his free-transfer move to the club, was paraded in front of the fans who were clearly happy at the signing and of the current match-score.

The start of the first half saw Everton make a couple of changes as Leon Osman replaced Tim Cahill at the break and a few minutes in to the second half Yakubu made his return from injury as he replaced the assiduous Bilyaletdinov.

Things went from bad-to-worse for AEK ten minutes in to the second period as defender Carlos Araujo was sent off for kicking-out at Distin, who was clearly in some pain from the incident.

Pienaar carried on with his fine performance into the second half as another low shot had to be saved from Saja, to deny Everton a fourth goal of the night.

Everton came close again on a couple of occasions as both Gosling and Osman went close with two half-chances but AEK were able to keep the ball out of the net.

Brazilian striker Jo then added to the score sheet when he found the ball with his back-to-goal 12-yards out, and swivelled to put the ball past the goalkeeper to put his side 4-0 up with ten-minutes to go.

Athens striker Ismael Blanco had a chance to get one back for the away-side in the dying-minutes, but his effort was straight at Tim Howard and the chance was wasted.

Everton's Louis Saha, who had replaced Steven Pienaar only a short-time earlier, was sent-off in stoppage time for raising his hand to Juanfran's face, which ended the match on a sour-note in an otherwise impressive night for Everton.

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