Everton 0-1 Man Utd (Sesko 71′)
HILL DICKINSON STADIUM — They had Fijian dancing in the rain at Hill Dickinson Stadium on Monday to celebrate the imminent arrival of international rugby union on Merseyside.
A summer test match between the Pacific nation and England feels like a proper coup for Everton, whose gleaming new arena really is all its cracked up to be.
But for 45 uncomfortable second half minutes against Manchester United, it felt like the spectacle had come early. How else to explain Everton attempting to recreate a rugby scrum for most of the 10 chaotic, buttock-clenching corner routines?
Look, we all know the patter now. Arsenal’s dead ball mosh pit routine is seriously ugly but effective. They’ve racked up 20 goals this season putting pressure on opposition goalkeepers before whipping in-swinging corners into the six-yard box. But is this really the route we want the Premier League to go down?
Everton’s tribute act should set some alarm bells ringing at Premier League HQ. Howard Webb announced before the season started, to great effect, that there would be a crackdown on holding from set pieces and we were primed to see sanctions for shirt-pulling from corners.
But as the campaign has gone on – and Arsenal have ground down their opponents with these tactics – it seems to be getting worse.
Nobody should want to see Everton playing like this (Photo: AFP/Getty)Everton certainly fancied their chances against Senne Lammens, crowding the box as they won a succession of corners. Aping Arsenal’s approach there was a man stationed in front of the Manchester United goalkeeper and other big men in blue prowling the penalty area for every flag kick. One replay showed three Everton players on the goalline and Lammens standing inside his goal.
Surely we can all agree – even those Arsenal fans willing their team to a first title in decades – that this is a bad thing? Even done well, it does nothing for the Premier League as a spectacle.
“It’s getting more and more difficult, I have to say,” was Lammens’ diplomatic verdict when asked about it afterwards. Perhaps the fact that he’d coped with it so well prevented him from unleashing his true feelings but it all felt a bit farcical.
“Bloody brilliant” was David Moyes’ gracious verdict on the Belgian. He explained he had hoped one of his players would “get a nick on” a corner but when the tactic wasn’t working he had been unable to change course.
Really though, Everton got what they deserved from dead balls. We can but hope their lack of set-piece success is a lesson to others tempted to follow in Mikel Arteta’s footsteps.
Arsenal fans will no doubt hate all of this. They feel unfairly maligned and targeted for a general trend in England that has just as much to do with the rise of data identifying set pieces as an area ripe for exploiting.
But sometimes if the cap fits, you have to wear it. No one begrudges a bit of ingenuity but when it becomes such an integral part of the spectacle, it really starts to become a problem.
How to solve it? Simple. Stop goalkeepers being impeded so blatantly before the kicks are taken. Empower refs to step in on mosh pit corner routines. Make it all about good delivery and clever runs, like it used to be.
It might be too late to stop the trend this season. But the PGMOL – never backward in coming forward with tweaks to the game we love – really have to act.
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