Listless Leeds make for sad Reid

Everton 4 Leeds United 0: Miserable history is repeating itself. A little under a year since he was sacked by Sunderland, Peter Reid's world is imploding again at Leeds, his position painfully undermined here as much by his listless players as by Steve Watson's first senior hat-trick.

The Yorkshire club were actually spared the hiding their inept display deserved yesterday but Everton, for all their profligacy, still ran riot. Leeds now languish in the relegation zone, with Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal looming large after next week's game with Blackburn. Any more displays as feeble as this and, for all the financial implications of dismissing him, Reid's position will become untenable.

Disappointment at his team's failings has quickly given way to angry disbelief. "If they haven't got desire or they don't want to compete, what can you do?" asked Reid. "We train, we organise, but we didn't turn up. We didn't want to turn up. I've got no excuses and I can't explain that performance, I can't justify it to the Leeds fans. It's hard to take. There's no passion, no desire."

That, more than anything, will hurt Reid. As a player in these parts his style was never less than abrasive, a frenzy of competitive intent. Those attributes were supposed to be mirrored in the teams he managed, though the lack of fight suggests he has already lost the dressing-room. How else can this shambles be explained? Here he stood red-faced on the touchline as his side meekly surrendered. For all that Everton were excellent, Leeds, with 10 conceded and none scored in three games, were an embarrassment.

"There were no tackles, no desire to play, no desire to work," Reid added. He is on a performance-based, one-year, rolling contract. It is hard to feel anything but sympathy for him, particularly given the lack of funds he has had to rebuild the side, but this suggests he may struggle to earn much between now and the axe falling. "Teams will be watching us saying that we haven't got the stomach for it, that all they need to do is battle to beat us."

Everton did more than battle. They, too, had stuttered in recent weeks but, offered minimal resistance, they were irrepressible. The home side might have been five goals to the good by the time they edged ahead, Watson gathering the comical Roque Junior's hurried clearance, exchanging passes on the edge of the area with Duncan Ferguson and lashing a breathtaking volley beyond Paul Robinson.

Tomasz Radzinski had hit a post by the time he raced on to the excellent James McFadden's pass to be blocked by Robinson, only for Watson to lob the loose ball over the retreating goalkeeper and Dominic Matteo from 30 yards.

"I told him in training that I hadn't been happy with the way he'd been playing, so he showed me what I know (he could do)," said David Moyes, whose side's rehabilitation - achieved with Wayne Rooney on the bench - was assured by the interval as Ferguson outjumped Zoumana Camara and nodded in Tony Hibbert's excellent centre. It was the Scot's first headed goal for Everton in five years.

Three Leeds players were hauled off at the break, though the visitors still creaked under Everton's relentless pressure. David Unsworth's cross was duly flicked on by the hapless Roque Junior and Watson, emerging at the Brazilian's back but presented with an awkward bouncing ball virtually on the goal-line, looped a third over Robinson.

There was still time for Rooney to miss a one-on-one with Robinson, though that hardly spared Leeds's blushes. Norman Hunter trudged into the press room afterwards the match and requested a "cup of arsenic". "Are you a Leeds fan?" asked the tea lady. Even he must have been loth to admit it.