The FA Cup has been good to the Everton defender but Aston Villa are a team he is wary of, writes Andy Hunter
JOLEON LESCOTT cannot forget eyeballing the Kop or the delirium of beating Liverpool in the FA Cup fourth round but two words will consign those memories to history and caution against over-exuberance at Goodison Park tomorrow: Aston Villa. The mere mention of their name can spark argument within the Everton defender’s inner circle.
This season has provided a salutary lesson for Lescott in how swiftly football’s swings and roundabouts follow one another.
Having swept the board with Everton’s player of the year awards and entered the England scene last term, the 26-year-old embodied his club’s malaise at the start of this campaign with the first sustained dip in form of his Premier League career.
Subsequently recovered and impressing once again alongside Phil Jagielka in the heart of David Moyes’s defence, he then suffered the disappointment of being overlooked by England coach Fabio Capello for the trip to Spain.
Nothing encapsulates how rapidly fortune can change for Lescott like his last encounter with Everton’s fifth-round opponents, however, when a 93rd-minute equaliser against Villa was followed by the sight of Ashley Young cutting inside him and scoring a sublime winner in the time added on to added time for Lescott’s celebrations. From ecstasy to despair in 82 seconds; there is unlikely to be any complacency in the Everton ranks tomorrow.
“We don’t fear anyone after beating Liverpool but this is the bigger game now and the last time we met Villa was heartbreaking,” says the Birmingham-born defender. “I don’t think I’ve gone from such a high to a low in a game that quickly before. That wave of emotion was hard to take. I’ve not beaten Villa in five games and the last was by far the worst. It would be nice to put that right in the cup.”
It strikes Lescott much closer to home when Villa triumph at his expense, too. The England international had several trials with his local club before making his way with Wolves. His older brother, the Bristol Rovers midfielder Aaron, began as a trainee at Villa Park while his cousin, Oliver, is a Villa fanatic and the source of fierce rivalry plus a seasonal bet on which team finishes higher in the league.
“He didn’t live up to his side of the bet at Christmas,” Lescott explains. “He was supposed to wear an Everton shirt at Christmas dinner because we finished above them last season but, because I had to stay up here and missed meeting up with the family, I couldn’t put pressure on him and he got away with it. He’s away working in Australia at the moment but he still texted me the other day to ask for tickets for the final – for Villa. I said I’d get him some for the Everton end at Wembley no problem.”
The cup, or rather the fourth-round pairing with Liverpool, has been good to Lescott so far with his goal and performance key to the draw at Anfield before Dan Gosling’s 118th-minute winner sealed victory in the replay. “I didn’t realise how much it meant at first but when I got home I had loads of texts from Everton fans, and even some from Liverpool fans, saying ‘I can’t believe you’ve scored in front of The Kop’,” he recalls. “After I’d scored I had to compose myself a little bit.”
The Everton defender also believes Rafael Benitez contributed to a raucous night at Goodison with disparaging complaints about his rivals’ defensive display at Anfield.
“I think what was said after the first game was disrespectful,” he adds. “We have different game plans for different teams and you can’t just go all-out attack against a so-called ‘big four’ team without any strikers. The comments didn’t have any effect on us during the game but they did fire us up beforehand.”
The start of the season, Lescott admits, was “a horrible time” for Everton and on a personal level, with his loss of form leading him to seek guidance from Moyes and the coaching staff. Form and confidence restored, the aim is now to regain an England place ahead of the 2010 World Cup.
“There was definitely a sense of regret when I saw Phil (Jagielka) playing against Spain on Wednesday,” Lescott admits. “I’d have loved to have been out there with him but I wouldn’t say I was jealous because me and Jags have worked well together this season and he deserves his cap. I was disappointed when I wasn’t in the squad last Saturday but you just have to get on with it. Hopefully if I keep a bit of consistency going I will get in the next one.”
Guardian Service
