ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE Everton 1 Bolton 2:WHATEVER MONEY Chelsea or the watching Harry Redknapp are prepared to pay for Gary Cahill cannot match his value in terms of Bolton's survival.
The in-demand Wanderers captain shrugged off doubts over his future at the club to take Bolton off the bottom of the table with a fine late winner at Everton. Bolton must do all they can to resist the advances.
Until Cahill fired Chris Eagles’ pass into the far corner of the Everton net with 12 minutes remaining, the story of the game belonged to Tim Howard. It was Everton’s US goalkeeper, not the returning US midfielder Landon Donovan, who opened the scoring when his clearance from a Sylvain Distin backpass caught on the wind and bounced over the head of Adam Bogdan into the Bolton net. The fact Howard provided Everton’s greatest threat against a struggling team told once more of the deficiencies in the team.
Moyes hopes the return of Donovan for a second loan spell from LA Galaxy will go some way to addressing that flaw and the US international, handed an immediate start, carried Everton’s only hopes of a breakthrough during a turgid first half.
Everton’s best opening arrived courtesy of Knight when, from a Baines’s cross, he headed straight into the path of Louis Saha inside the area. Saha’s first touch lost the ball under him and his second dragged a glorious chance wide.
Bolton’s threat increased as the interval approached. Howard was forced to take evasive action when the wind almost took John Heitinga’s headed clearance into his own goal and then David Ngog was denied by the Everton keeper.
Though Everton pressed in the second half it was Bolton, and particularly Ngog, who engineered the clearer openings. Ngog and Mark Davies both drew excellent saves out of the goalkeeper and with Goodison still reverberating over his remarkable goal, the French forward produced a fine equaliser.
When Cahill found the same spot after Everton had failed to clear a Bolton free-kick, the visitors were off the bottom and only a point behind QPR, though only after they were reprieved in stoppage time, when Baines hit the bar with a dipping free-kick from 25 yards.
Guardian Service
EVERTON:Howard, Hibbert, Jagielka (Rodwell 42), Distin, Baines, Donovan, Neville, Heitinga, Osman (Gueye 53), Stracqualursi, Saha, Rodwell (Cahill 61). Subs not used: Mucha, Bilyaletdinov, McFadden, Anichebe. Booked: Distin.
BOLTON WANDERERS: Bogdan, Steinsson, Cahill, Knight, Ricketts, Mark Davies, Muamba, Reo-Coker, Petrov, Eagles (Pratley 81), Ngog (Kevin Davies 87). Subs not used: Lynch, Robinson, Sanli, Klasnic, Wheater. Booked: Ngog, Reo-Coker, Cahill.
Referee: Phil Dowd(Staffordshire).
