The Hindu : Sport : Everton wins its second straight match

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 16, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport

Everton wins its second straight match

Osman, Stubbs and Lescott score for the winner

LONDON: Everton scored three first-half goals and won its second straight match to open the English Premier League football season on Wednesday, claiming a 3-1 victory at Tottenham to hand the Spurs their second consecutive loss.

Goals by Leon Osman and Alan Stubbs in the final eight minutes of the first half led Everton, which also won its opener at home against Wigan 2-1 on Saturday.

Joleon Lescott gave Everton the lead in the second minute, but Tottenham, which lost its opening match 1-0 at Sunderland on Saturday and was without the first choice central defensive partnership of Ledley King and Michael Dawson because of injury, equalised in the 26th minute on a goal by Antony Gardner.

Tottenham, which was unbeaten in pre-season and spent less on new players than only Manchester United and Liverpool, will next face the newly promoted Derby on Saturday.

Spurs manager Martin Jol started record signing Darren Bent for the first time, playing the England striker alongside both Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane.

Bent was lively early on, but it was Everton that took the lead when Lescott headed in from a free kick.

Hamstring problem

Jol lost another central defender when Younes Kaboul went off with a hamstring problem to be replaced by Ricardo Rocha and, although Gardner equalised with a header, Osman restored Everton’s lead with a 37th-minute volley after Victor Anichebe had a header blocked.

Stubbs made it 3-1 just before half time with a deflected free kick from 30 metres.

Berbatov hit the post at the start of the second half and Keane went close with a free kick, leaving Jol to bring on striker Jermain Defoe for Bent and winger Wayne Routledge for out-of-form defender Paul Stalteri for the last half-an-hour.

After going winless in 21 years at White Hart Lane, Everton has won at Tottenham two seasons in a row.

The result: