Light flickers at end of long tunnel

A light flickered at the end of what is a very long and dark tunnel for Everton yesterday.

The home crowd have grown accustomed to the notion that they should be grateful for small mercies and if they were not exactly putting up the bunting afterwards, there was an almost tangible sense of relief.

A first win in more than a month was sufficient to lift Everton out of the bottom three and lend credence to the belief that they are not quite as bad a side as their position suggests. Bad, but not that bad.

"That gets us back on track," said Everton's manager Walter Smith. "We were bitterly disappointed to lose to Sheffield Wednesday on Monday; we did well to recover." What Smith neglected to point out was that his side were fortunate to meet such dreadful opposition.

Coventry City were lamentably poor and, predictably, their manager Gordon Strachan did not spare the whip afterwards. "There is no point at all in us turning up if we are going to play like that," he said.

In the match programme, history had been rewritten with the results section proudly proclaiming not a 3-2 defeat but a win in the previous weekend's Merseyside derby.

Fittingly it was the spirit engendered by the prospect of impending disaster which proved to be Everton's best ally on an almost surreal afternoon which would have left any purist shaking his head in disbelief. That is to say there was a commendable amount of effort but no guile and precious little skill.

At one point midway through the first half Everton strung four passes together and the stadium rose to pay a vociferous and sustained tribute; it was that sort of a game.

With Coventry barely interested in contesting the points Everton, in their own distinctly low-key manner, dominated without ever hinting that they would get the goals which their measured football deserved.

Strangely, it was almost half an hour before Coventry's ramshackle defence was undone, Kevin Campbell brushing Paul Williams aside before cleverly allowing the ball to roll wide of the goalkeeper Magnus Hedman. Thereafter Everton decided to test out the theory that all football-lovers are masochists who love to have their nerve endings frayed.

The argument was eventually decided in Everton's favour with two minutes remaining, when Campbell again showed impressive opportunism, turning home at the near post after good work by Nick Barmby.

Three minutes earlier Everton had been reduced to 10 men with the dismissal of Marco Materazzi, his third of the season, for a second bookable offence.

EVERTON: Myhre, Weir, Short, Watson, Ball, Dacourt, Gemmill, Barmby, Materazzi, Jeffers (Grant 86), Campbell. Subs Not Used: Ward, Degn, Cadamarteri, Simonsen. Sent Off: Materazzi (84). Booked: Gemmill, Myhre, Dacourt, Materazzi, Barmby. Goals: Campbell 29, 88.

COVENTRY CITY: Hedman, Telfer (Aloisi 15), Shaw, Breen, Burrows, McAllister, Boateng, Soltvedt, Williams, Huckerby, Whelan. Subs Not Used: Konjic, Edworthy, Shilton, Kirkland. Booked: Boateng, Huckerby.

Referee: R Harris (Oxford).