Newcastle battle to save a point

Newcastle Utd 0 Everton 0: THE EVERTON built by David Moyes is an institution that has flourished with its back to the wall, but there is only so much adversity a club can take.

For four months, deprived of specialist strikers and with rice-paper cover in other positions, they have clawed their way up the table and, in the FA Cup, towards Wembley. However, the sight of Mikel Arteta carried off on a stretcher after an innocuous challenge, a further injury to Victor Anichebe and their inability to break down a Newcastle side that, after Kevin Nolan’s dismissal, played with 10 men, sparked a weary sigh of despair in the Everton manager.

“We have had players out of position before but not this much out of position,” said Moyes. “We are close to breaking point and here we had nobody to make a difference. The news I am getting about Mikel is not great but I would rather wait before commenting. Without him we lacked the guile to break them down.

“We actually had more chances when Newcastle had 11 but we were just too patched-up to get any rhythm. We have been through so much that I don’t even ask my players about character any more but, if you want to get to the very top, you have to take your opportunities and we should have taken this.”

If Merseyside was choked by frustration yesterday, there was a scent of revolution in the Tyneside air. Beneath the monument to Earl Grey, author of the 1832 Reform Bill, and a few yards from the Newcastle club shop from where a life-sized cut-out of Michael Owen peered through the windows, several hundred fans had gathered to demand reforms of their own.

One of their spokesmen, Steve Hastie of the Newcastle United Supporters Club, spat out the names of director of football Dennis Wise and the owner, Mike Ashley, with the same venom that a generation reserved for Margaret Thatcher, before saying that his dearest wish was for Newcastle once more to be called “the entertainers and become everyone’s favourite second team, just as we were under Kevin Keegan”.

A dreadful over-the-top tackle on Anichebe that guaranteed Nolan’s instant dismissal and a goalless draw does not really count as entertainment and will not make many inroads into the Guildford branch of the Manchester United Supporters’ Club.

However, the kind of resilience Newcastle displayed after Nolan’s red card took them a small, shuffling step towards safety.

Nolan apologised to Anichebe during the interval, and this appeared to be a crime of over-enthusiasm. He was brought up in Toxteth as a Liverpool fan and this was an encounter he relished.

It was not an afternoon to remember for those players on whom Joe Kinnear and Wise had spent Newcastle’s dwindling revenues in the transfer window. Unlike Nolan, for whom Bolton received €4.5 million. Peter Lovenkrands cost nothing but any kind of centre forward would have backed themselves to score when put clean through after a wonderful move that involved Shola Ameobi and Nicky Butt.

Newcastle’s caretaker manager, Chris Hughton, admitted he and the rest of his bench were already on their feet when the Dane’s shot clattered into the advertising hoardings .

Little by little, the big names who ought to represent Newcastle’s best insurance against relegation are returning. Obafemi Martins had his first run-out in two months and Alan Smith his first of the season, while Owen, after another minor operation on his groin, should return to face Hull on March 14th.

But, as Moyes acknowledged, Everton should have won this game early on when two glaring opportunities from corners were cleared off the line. Newcastle’s defending from set-pieces is still as erratic as it was in the days when they entertained and were everybody’s second favourite team.

Guardian Service