Everton Reserves	1-0	Newcastle United Reserves
Half time:	0-0
Score Sheet:
Chadwick (62)
	Teams
Paul Gerrard Tony Hibbert Alec Cleland Peter Clarke George Pilkington Thomas Kearney Idan Tal Keith Southern Nick Chadwick David Eaton Kevin McLeod		Steve Harper Warren Barton Wayne Quinn  David Cowan Steve Caldwell Brian Kerr Michael Chopra Mark Boyd Shola Ameobi Colin McMenamin Lomana LuaLua
Substitutes:
None		James Coppinger for McMenamin (46) Bradley Orr for Chopra (63)
Subs not used:
Sean O'Hanlon Andrew Pettinger Damien Curran Ryan Valentine		Phil Pringle Ryan McGuffie Tommy English
Bookings:
Eton (21) Hand off on Barton, although toon man tried to stop yellow being shown Chadwick (58) tackled through Caldwell		Caldwell (32)  led with shoulder into Southern.
Referee: E. Evans. Reasonable game, no real ricks but slightly fussy over freekicks and prone to whistling for the slightest infringement, to the irritation of both sets of players and coaches.
Attendance: 571 Concentrated in one end of the main stand - opposite stand and stand away to the left unused. Right hand (Eastern) end of stadium still undeveloped - remains of a standing terrace and a scoreboard. Bobby Robson watched it from the warmth of an executive box - very wise.... Amongst those spotted in the director's box were Blackpool boss Steve McMahon and an unidentified Ipswich Town representative.

Half time: Everton 0 Newcastle Reserves 0 

62 mins A cross from the Everton left reached LuaLua, who brought it down with his foot, only to see it bounce and fall into the range of the lurking  Chadwick. He smashed it goalwards on the volley and it simply flew past a frozen Harper into his top right hand corner from close on 20 yards. Simply unstoppable. 0-1

Full time: Everton 1 Newcastle Reserves 0 

Toffee's reserve coach Andy Holden said:

“I thought he (Gerrard) had a great game and made a few important saves for us,

“He pulled a great save off after just 10 minutes to keep it a 0-0 and that gave us the confidence to go on and progress in the game.

“Then there was a couple after we went ahead and right at the death, well, he has kept us in the game to be honest.”

Whilst the efforts of the ‘keeper were crucial last night, so too was the attitude of the outfield players who showed great strength against a more experienced Newcastle outfit.

“The lads stuck at it to be fair to them and it wasn’t easy because the conditions on the pitch weren’t great and they faced a side with a bit of experience. They had Warren Barton playing at full-back and the two front-runners both had first team experience, so credit where credit's due.

“It was always going to be scrappy, end-to-end, and I think they actually had more chances on goal than ourselves.”

Everton midfielder Keith Southern made his first appearance of the season after return from a cruciate injury and commented:

"It's been a long road back but I'm delighted to get 90 minutes in - there's nothing more frustrating than working hard all the time at the training ground knowing that you're not going to get a game at the end of the week.

“But the medical people here have been brilliant and I had to take on board their advice and wait until I was completely ready to play again.

“Now it is just a case of taking my time and trying to get as many reserve games under my belt as I can.

"It was nice to be back from a personal point of view, but the result was the most important thing, we're obviously at the wrong end of the table and we needed the points." 

Tommy Craig commented:

"I was actually delighted with the way we played and we had so many chances.

"I could not have asked more from the team in terms of attitude and application but we had one of those nights when we were never going to score.

"And I have to say that Everton keeper Paul Gerrard was absolutely magnificent. He made some truly brilliant saves from Lomana Lua Lua, Jamie Coppinger and Shola Ameobi.

"In addition, Shola hit the post and he had another shot which hit the keeper before going on to strike a post."

"The big plus point is that all these five got in a really good shift."

"In the last two years we have been second and third in the table at Christmas and then fallen away in the second half of the season and I don't want that to happen again."

A luckless Newcastle side crashed to their third consecutive defeat, and have now only taken one point from their three trips to the Autoquest Stadium.

However as coach Tommy Craig pointed out, all that was missing was goals and in chances created and territorial possession we were the superior side. On another night Shola Ameobi might have had a hat trick, but Gerrard was equal to his two first time shots on target in the opening half hour, and the post intervened after the break when the Everton 'keeper had over-committed himself.

It was scoreless at the break, and at that stage there looked to be only one winner, but in similar fashion to the Leeds home reserve game, we contrived to miss our chances and allow the opposition to snatch an unlikely winner. To be fair to Everton, they had been slightly more involved in the game than Leeds, and the eventual goal scorer Chadwick missed the best chance of the first half when Harper saved well from his shot when on-on-one.

Pointless return aside, there were a number of positives for United from the game: most notably the return of midfielder Brian Kerr to something approaching his old form, with his touch and passing vision coming back finally after something of a lean spell since his return from injury.

With midfielders in short supply, Michael Chopra was asked to reprise his England role on the right flank and almost broke through once or twice, while behind him Warren Barton put in a steady professional shift.

The talented twosome upfront never quite got into gear and failed to linkup with each other - this was one of those nights when Lua passed rather than shot and vice versa: some of his approach work was marvellous but his usefulness to the team rather less so. Some late hope was provided by Coppinger, who made several dangerous runs in from the left and almost saved a point in the 4th minute of added time with a header from an awkward angle that Gerrard just clutched.

Biffa 

Reports