Everton v Sheffield United

Last updated : 20 October 2006 By Les Roberts

…and some are no doubt still spitting feathers about how they were still in the Premiership until about ten to five on Saturday 7th May 1994 when Mark Stein volleyed Chelsea into a 3-2 lead against them, thus condemning them to the lower leagues.

But, for whatever reason, some seem to point the finger at Graham Stuart's pea roller past Hans Segers a full 10 minutes beforehand.


Not to mention a full 220 miles away!


But, just to draw a line under all of this, the reason Sheffield United
went down was because they ended the season with 42 points and everyone else, bar Oldham and Swindon, finished it with more.


End of!


So what can we expect from Neil Warnock's men tomorrow?

Well they've won just one game all season, a 2-1 win over Middlesbrough at the end of last month.


A team that everyone appears to be able to take something off except
Chelsea and ourselves!


The only other decent results they've managed have been a 0-0 draw
against Man City in their last match and a 1-1 draw against Liverpool on the opening day.


A game they may well have won had Rob Styles not awarded our beloved
neighbours a dubious penalty after an unidentified Blades player cynically missed both player and ball and knocked Steven Gerrard off balance, presumably, with a stray nose hair.


As Rob Styles so eloquently put it afterwards: "I saw the Sheffield

United player to come in and make side contact with Steven Gerrard."


"The Sheffield United player"…well said Rob!


They are currently occupying16th position in the Premiership and,

despite being many people's tip for 20th position come the end of the season, they do have the players capable of keeping them up.


They have a decent looking forward line in the shape of Danny Webber and
Rob Hulse.


Webber looked mustard for Watford last year before he moved to Sheffield
United on loan and last season he bagged 10 goals for them.


Rob Hulse is also a decent striker who formed a good partnership with
Dean Ashton at Crewe before moving on to Leeds where he netted 18 goals in 45 appearances.


And he's currently Blades top scorer with three goals this season, the good news for us is that he could well be sidelined by injury tomorrow.


They've also got some decent players all around the park with the likes
of Paddy Kenny in goal and Phil Jagielka, Michael Tonge, Keith Gillespie and Paul Ifil outfield, so they're not going to be a push over.


And then there's the Everton connection.


Including assistant manager Stuart McCall, Blades currently have four
former Blues on their books.


There's also Craig Short, Li Tie and, most notably, David Unsworth.

The dressing room is that way you say?
























It'll be good to see the Rhino back at Goodison as, no matter where he goes, you know that he's still Everton through and through and he always gave 100 per cent…even when he was having a ‘mare.

Rhino






























So what's the Blues news for tomorrow?


The bad news is that, after coming of with a groin injury against Boro
last week, it looks like Tony Hibbert is going to be out for a couple of months.


That means that Phil Neville is likely to continue at right back and,

potentially, Simon Davies will get his chance to fill in in midfield.


Either that or we go 4-4-2 with James Beattie and Andy Johnson up front.


Which is a tricky one as, although everyone likes to see two strikers up
front, this really limits Tim Cahill's effectiveness and the Aussie looks more dangerous than most at the moment.


So we'll have to wait and see on that one but, no matter what Moysie
does, there'll no doubt be people moaning about his team selection come three o'clock!


Historically, this hasn't been too good a fixture for us even though

we've only met them four times in the Premiership.


They beat us 0-2 at home and 0-1 away during 1992/93 and we drew 0-0
with them at Bramall Lane the following season.


But we did give them a good shoeing at home that season, beating them
4-2 just three games into the fateful 1993/94 campaign.


At that point, the Dome was still in charge at Everton and we had already won our
opening two fixtures against Southampton and
Man City…but we all know how that season panned out!


A hat-trick from Tony Cottee and one from John Ebbrell on the stroke of
half time cancelled out efforts from Dane Whitehouse and Alan Cork who, I think, did that mad beard growing thing that season and ended up looking like Grizzly Adams!


4-2 to Everton…I'd take a repeat of that result right now!