By Rhys Lewis
November 21 2005

Everton were completely and utterly embarrassed on saturday evening as they went down 4-0 to fellow strugglers West Bromich Albion thanks to goals from Nathan Ellington (two), Neil Clement and Robert Earnshaw. It was another compelte shambles of a performance with seemingly no passion or desire from the players. Moyes had to make 2 changes to the team who had performed much better in recent weeks, duncan ferguson could only make the bench due to illness so Marcus Bent had to come in, but bringing in a tree would have proved a better decision. Also Tim Cahill picked up a groin strain playing for Australia so he missed out, instead Kevin Kilbane played, well he was on the pitch.

The first half was fairly even with neither side looking capable of playing football. It was full of inaccuarte long balls, players mis-controlling it and generally no goal threat. The only time West Brom looked like scoring was when Kamara broke free only to see his shot bloked by Yobo. Evertons efforts came from a wayward Marcus Bent shot and a poor header also by Bent, a looping header from van der Meyde, a shocking effort from Kilbane and a poor free kick by James Beattie. However this all changed when Dermot Gallagher somehow gave a penalty on the stroke of half time for a foul by Hibbert on Ellington. It was debateable whether he touched him but even if he did he was at least 2 yards outside the box. Ellington calmly tucked the penalty away with great composure for his first goal in the Premiership.

The second half started and you thought Everton might play with some pride. Van der Meyde got moved out left, Arteta out right and Kilbane was moved into the middle. It made a difference, unfortunatly it was for the worse. 5 minutes into the second half Clement found himself in the 6 yard box with a free header from a corner, which he buried. That was game over. There was still time for Ellington to be given the freedom of the Hawthornes and turn on the edge of the area before easily slotting the ball home into the bottom corner. The action didnt end there, Kevin Kilbane turned in the middle of the pitch and played a fantastic through ball, which split the defence. Unfortunatly it was his own defence he split as for some unknown reason he decided to play it straight past Weir to Earnshaw who found himself 25 yards out and in goal before he easily slotted it past the helpless Martyn.

Its not the first time ive sat and watched in complete embarrassment, and i dont believe it will be the last. But if a performance like that cant get a team motivated to win the next game then i dread to think what it will take. Probably a 5-1 drubbing to an average Romanian team......oh wait.