Everton v Norwich City match report: Hosts begin life after Roberto Martinez with stylish win
Everton 3-0 Norwich City: Goalkeeper Tim Howard bids farewell with a clean sheet as Joe Royle and David Unsworth lead hosts to victory
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Your support makes all the difference.Watching Everton was like seeing a bedridden patient taking a short walk in the spring sunshine.
After all the poison that had infected Roberto Martinez’s tortured final month at Goodison Park, there was something refreshing in seeing Everton entrust the final game of what has been a deflating season to the products of their own academy.
On Friday morning Oumar Niasse, whom Martinez thought was worth £13m of Everton’s money, was helping police with their enquiries following an assault in Salford. Now, four teenagers – Matthew Pennington, Kieran Dowell, Jonjoe Kenny and especially Tom Davies – gave Goodison Park a different vision of the future.
The Under-21 manager, David Unsworth, who was given temporary charge of first-team affairs, backed the young players he had worked with and was rewarded with Everton’s biggest win since November.
At the end, Davies born a few miles away in West Derby, received his man-of-the-match award from Tim Howard, who was playing his 414th and final match for Everton. The club’s past and its future in a single screenshot.
Given that Frank de Boer, the favourite to take over permanently from Martinez, has overseen the great Ajax academy, De Toekomst, he might appreciate the inheritance he is being offered.
“I think it’s a goldmine,” said Unsworth. “There is not just one or two, we have an abundance of quality. There are seven or eight young players who are either ready now or will be in a year. I am very proud. If I could have written a script for this game, it would have been exactly what happened from minute one to the end.”
Last Wednesday morning this game looked it might be a ferocious affair with Norwich fighting for their survival and Everton’s supporters attempting to force Martinez out of the club. Everton’s capitulation at Sunderland that relegated Norwich and triggered Martinez’s dismissal put an end to all that.
The end-of-season farewells were greeted with the kind of applause and optimism that could not have been imagined a few days before. Tim Howard said goodbye to the strains of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA. Quite why a song about post-traumatic stress and unemployment was thought suitable mood music nobody quite knew but Howard received a standing ovation.
Alex Neil had intimated in midweek that his future as Norwich manager might be in question but now, after what he called “a time for self-reflection and a look at my contribution”, he indicated he was ready to carry on at Carrow Road. He would be speaking to every player on Monday to ascertain their commitment to what has become a familiar battle to haul themselves back up into the Premier League.
Of the three teams who were promoted 12 months ago, Norwich were the biggest and best equipped to cope with the Premier League. Their season has been every bit as bitter as Everton’s and was summed up by Matt Jarvis, who had been perfectly teed up by Cameron Jerome, driving his shot deep into the Gwladys End. “That’s why we’re going down,” chanted those who had journeyed up from Norfolk.
The match was ripped open by a fabulous first-time strike by James McCarthy from 20 yards out but the goal was made by a run from Kieran Dowell, who picked up the ball near the halfway line and held off three Norwich players, before McCarthy unleashed his drive.
Three minutes after the restart, McCarthy found Kenny on the overlap. The teenager’s low cross eluded everyone, giving Kevin Mirallas the simplest of tap-ins at the far post.
In between, Everton had won a penalty when Romelu Lukaku, tussling with Robbie Brady to meet Gareth Barry’s floated cross, went down perhaps a little too easily. For the first time this season, Leighton Baines took the penalty. Lukaku had missed his last two and the one in the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United had destroyed what remained of Everton’s season. Baines struck his straight down the middle.
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