Secondly, Thomas Gravesen needs to sort himself out. One his day he's brilliant, but i never like players who are good 'on their day'. He clearly didn't want to be there for this game, and that's not on.
The first half was poor, the best chance we had was Campbell hitting the post from close range, and Birmingham too hit the woodwork from a good free kick. Apart from those two incidents and some terrible refereeing, things were pretty dull. One more thing. Why oh why does David Unsworth play in midfield, he is about as subtle as an air raid, and has the finess of a drunken sumo wrestler. He's a good defender, period.
As it happened he got his chance to prove this after Alan Stubbs was rightly sent off after four minutes of the second half. Gravesen's awful back pass let in John, who was clearly held by Stubbs. Joh scored the penalty, and Unsworth went into defence, and actually played much better for it.
Everton were still playing three up front, Wayne Rooney was doing well when he was on the ball, but i'd rather see him in a central role, rather than playing wider as he was here. Kevin Campbell's touch was as bad as always, he wins lots of headers, but they never lead to anything. I can't see him staying in the side for long.
The one beacon of hope was Li Tie. He was fast, thoughful and most of all enthusiastic. He was the only Everton player who always wanted the ball, we need players who give a shit and he is one, whereas a few others today (Gravesen for example), clearly don't.
Everton piled on the pressure, and for the last 30 minutes we battered the visitors, and had the luck run our way we would have scored more. A few good shots were blocked, and a few good through balls were inches away from perfection. Still, the game was pretty depressing until about 2 minutes from the end.
Everton were awarded a corner, and Wayne Rooney sprinted over to take it. His cross (the best one of the game!), was only partially cleared and broke to Unsworth, who's shot hit the post and a defender before making about 40,000 people pant wettingly happy. It was a relief, and we deserved it, but a few players need a bloody good talking too. We should be battering Birmingham, not scraping a 1-1 draw in the last minute.
Man of the Match - Li Tie, the only player showing any sort of flair (well, apart from Rooney of course)
Twat of the Day - I hate to say this, but the referee. To be fair though, he wasn't biased, he made stupid descisions against both teams. Bless him.