What a strange night. Three points, three goals, a guy stripped down to his speedo’s in the Upper Bullens, and fans booing at 3-1 with a minute on the clock.

This was the storyline behind a crucial victory that had the Blues moving in the right direction ahead of the busy Christmas schedule.

Everton 3 QPR 1: Anxiety Levels Rise Despite Comfortable Goodison Win

By @markthablue

First of all, the crowd was, for want of a better word, weird. We moan a lot, even when we’re winning, and there are some aspects of our play that do irritate – such as the over passing – but to openly boo a pass knocked back to the goalkeeper when the team is 3-1 up in the last-minute is absolutely embarrassing.

The team had done all we asked and we have to give credit where its due. It wasn’t perfect but it was far from awful either.

We don’t have the characters in the stands to sing for 90 minutes. Personally, I will forever envy Crystal Palace for the atmosphere they generate. That is support. Sitting there waiting for players to make a mistake is not.

As a fan base we do seem to indulge ourselves in negativity. The team had lots of positives here with terrific performances for a new look midfield pairing of Besic and Barkley who were standout performers against the West Londoners.

I thought Barkley gave a masterclass in the first half. QPR were here to frustrate us and given Everton’s notoriously bad defensive record at home it was nice not to feel threatened by the opposition. This was largely comfortable for the blues but the anxiety in the crowd was needless.

We need to support the team and not jump to the negativity as a first resort.

No one is encouraged anymore, we just criticize and it badly needs to stop. I’d be amazed if the players weren’t affected by it so come on blues, give the huge amount of talent on the pitch all the encouragement they need to prosper because this Everton side can still go places this season.

After a quiet opening the blues began to grow into the game and the industrious Naismith, who I thought was terrific, broke down the right but his low cross just evaded Lukaku’s outstretched leg as the blues began to impress upon the visitors.

QPR, now firmly on the retreat, were lucky to escape going behind as Barkley played a one two with Lukaku before beating Fer with confidence and feeding Coleman. The Irishman, who for me is still to regain his best form this season, picked out the onrushing Naismith who saw his goal bound shot blocked by none other than Lukaku as QPR escaped.

The blues highlighted their continued dominance with Mirallas cutting in from the left to drill a right footed Exocet just over the bar a minute later.

Then the moment of magic came from the left foot of Ross Barkley – why this guy comes under such criticism is beyond me – I am biased, I love Ross Barkley, especially after having witnessed the likes of Claus Thomsen, Mitch Ward, Stephen Hughes and Nyarko in the centre.

Ross Barkley should quite simply be cherished. He is a fantastic footballer who we need to encourage not jump on and this was the best of him here. Feeding Lukaku with a deft round the corner pass, he picked up Lukaku’s accurately fizzed lay off at pace.

Barkley drove at the QPR defence for the first time from his deep laying midfield position before smashing a ferocious left footed strike into the top corner with Green unable to even smell it.

Barkley’s strike took a nick off Isla on its way through but in no way should it take away from the quality of the strike. A special goal from a special player.

With QPR  clearly dropping heads left right and centre, Everton took a decisive advantage on 43 minutes from the raised head of Vargas. Kevin Mirallas, taking advice from Baines who had previously pointed out the ridiculous set up of the QPR wall – they had their two shortest players on the end – struck the ball towards goal in the direction of Barton and Vargas.

You make your own luck in this game and the Belgian’s strike took a huge deflection off Vargas who, in trying to clear it, only succeeded in deflecting the ball to the opposite corner of Green’s goal and the blues were two up.

Everton almost made it three with McGeady, such a frustrating player who divides opinion right across the board, showing how dangerous he can be. Initially looking like he’d hand-balled, he curled a left footed shot just past the outstretched Green’s post. McGeady has undoubted ability but the frequency in which he uses it needs to be upped if he is to win over his critics.

Half time arrived with Barkley the undoubted star for me. I thought he adapted to his new defensive midfield role perfectly as he won tackles and dictated the pace of the game. The combination of Barkley and the boundless Besic gave Everton a great platform from which to spring forward.

Besic, finally showing what he is all about, slid in on Leroy Fer with a perfect Joe Parkinson-esq challenge in Everton’s half before receiving the ball off Naismith and finding Mirallas in space with an excellent first time left footed pass. Mirallas, at full pace, went over in the box from Dunne’s challenge but referee Swarbrick, unsurprisingly given his ridiculous anti-Everton display, deemed the challenge a fair one.

Everton’s superiority in the game was sealed with a deserved goal for Steven Naismith in the 53rd minute. Rob Green’s sliced clearance brought the sort of mis-control from Dunne that I would have done trying to do keep-ups.

Mirallas seized upon it before driving at the Hoops defence and feeding McGeady – now Aiden, this is what we love to see from you – McGeady committed the full back with trickery and stood up a great cross to the far post. Naismith’s header eventually found the net off the despairing Onuoha to make it 3-0.

It was all Naismith deserved. He is pure Everton the way he plays, a throwback to the days of Andy Gray in the way he approaches the game, fearless and tenacious in equal measure. He won an obscene amount of headers and his energy and attitude on the pitch is something we sorely miss when he’s not in the side.

The game entered an all to familiar comatose state and while I totally disagree with the level of negativity in the stands I believe it stems from periods of the game such as this. We seem all to eager at times to take our foot off the pedal. the truly great teams do not stop pressing forward and we need to develop this attitude more and more especially if we don’t address the defensive issue in January.

Attacking wise when we are on it there are few better teams than us. We have great quality on the counter attack albeit with a lack of pace in certain forward areas, but we need to improve the frequency of when we attack. Don’t stop until our opponents are beaten into the ground and we’re more than capable of doing it.

In true Everton style we conceded a totally preventable goal with ten minutes left. Jordon Mutch’s low effort should have been dealt with better by Tim Howard who continued his obsession with parrying clearances right back into the danger zone and assisting Bobby Zamora who had his easiest chance all season to tap home for the visitors.

The crowd was becoming increasingly anxious to the point of irritation. We were never under pressure from QPR – yes they pulled a goal back but that was it – we need to have a collective Radox bath and chill out a bit. Too much stand-stress guys and to emphasise the point it was only the blues who looked like adding to the score sheet as the game drew to a conclusion.

First Barkley found Coleman with a slide rule pass and the Irishman, rolling back the months, stung the palms of Green with a fierce drive as Everton looked to add gloss to the finish.

Kone and Eto’o were now on as subs and, dare I say it, they looked quality in the 3-4 minutes they shared on the pitch. Kone, carrying his confidence on from his man of the match performance against Krasnodar, drove at the QPR defence before finding Eto’o in the six yard box.

Eto’o, with delightful awareness and composure, passed the ball beyond Green but agonizingly back off the post and off the keeper’s head before being cleared. It was eye candy from Eto’o who has been a great addition to the squad this season. Just for his star quality if nothing else.

Kone almost rounded off another blues attack but failed to reach Coleman’s low cross across the six yard box. It was not to be for Kone who I think could be a valuable contributor for the rest of the season.

Fans in the Gwladys laughing at him attacking need to give the guy a break. I’ve seen a hundred worse strikers than him at Goodison Park and still believe he can help us out positively in a demanding second half to the season.

FT: Everton 3 QPR 1

The blues had one of their easier home victories of the season but the booing of Jagielka’s pass back to Howard when the game was won was scandalous and I do know where its come from; the crab like passing and knocking the ball back has been an irritant for much of the season fbut the game was won, we were seeing it out and to react like that was over the top to say the least.

An honourable mention for Besic who was excellent. He looks a great player and I hope he gets his chance to now start regularly and build on this performance. Allowing myself to get carried away – Besic and Barkley could be the new Bracewell and Reid for us – we can dream anyway.

Onto a faltering Southampton and should we win there it truly opens things up for us. We are still within touching distance of the top four and three points at St Mary’s would be the perfect Christmas present.

Come on blues, were all on the nice list, honest, despite the moaning.

Let’s hope we can claim victory and set ourselves up for the sell out at home to Stoke on Boxing day. These will be a huge few weeks for the blues in which we can truly make our presence felt on the top six as we head into the new year.

“It was a really important win. It was important to bounce back. It now allows us to move forward and focus on the Southampton game.” Roberto Martinez

Santa is on his way blues, let’s hope he drops our presents off early next Saturday

Sin Miedo

Mark Ellis

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