Match Preview; Newcastle v Everton

In the Blues' first game of the new year, Everton travel up north to face, "that wee club in the North East", Newcastle United. St James Park has proved to be a difficult place to go for the Blues. It seems that the Geordies just love scoring absolute stunners against us specifically. Last season saw Ryan Taylor score a 25 yard stunning volley which proved to be the winning goal. And we cant forget Alan Shearers similar volley a few years ago against us.

Our last trip to Newcastle ended in a 2-1 defeat for the Blues with Rodwell grabbing a goal back after we went 2-0 down. When the two sides met earlier this season, a game filled with controversy resulted in a 2-2 draw. After having a goal ruled out for offside in the first half which was blatantly onside, the Blues went on to score another goal which wasn't given despite the ball appearing to cross the line.

Regarding injuries, it seems that no players that missed the 2-1 defeat to Chelsea at the weekend will be back in time for tomorrow. Moyes also stated that the Blues could be without Darron Gibson for a month following an injury he picked up against Wigan. 

The Opposition

When it comes to the news of our opposition, Newcastle, I'm not expert. Therefore, I'll let Ed Harrison from Newcastle fan site NUFCBlog take over.

Newcastle have been hit with a long list of injuries this season and those currently out are Ryan Taylor, Dan Gosling, Haris Vuckic, Yohan Cabaye, Steven Taylor, Danny Simpson, Ben Arfa and Jonas Gutierrez, and they will not play against Everton.

With the injuries and European competition we have been unable to handle the extra games and our squad is simply too small, along with some of our players, who have been fit, have not shown the form of last season.

And of course we have been without Steven Taylor, Yohan Cabaye and Ben Arfa for a while now - and they are due back later this month.

And since early November we have lost eight of our last ten league games and have just 7 points from the last 11 league games and we are not in good shape in the league - it's our worst run ever in the Premier League. Couple that with the antics of Demba Ba's advisers in the last few days, and things are not too good at the club at the moment. But we are still hoping for our sixth home win of the season tomorrow, although we have yet to win on the toad.

Our starting eleven for tomorrow will probably be the following:

Krul

Perch     Coloccini (captain)     Williamson     Santon 

Tiote     Anita     Marveaux 

Cisse     Ba     Obertan 

In recent games Dutch International Anita has been one of our best players, even though he's just 5'6" tall and Frenchmen Gabby Obertan and Sylvain Marveaux have also started to show up well.

Demba Ba has scored half of our goals in the league this season with 13 - and he scored a brace in our 7-3 walloping at Arsenal last Sunday. As we said we still are hoping for all 3 points to help us away from the relegation zone.

Best Everton Moments of 2012... (Part 2)

Today we continue our posts of the best Everton moments of 2012.

Tony Hibbo's Testimonial

We start today's best Everton moments with a night around 18,000 Evertonians will never forget. It was a warm August 9th night when the Blues took on Greek side AEK Athens in a testimonial for scouser and long life Evertonian Tony Hibbert. While Steven Naismith was stealing the show with a hat trick, the tension could be felt every time Hibbo touched the ball. But, the special moment arrived in the 53rd minute with a free kick in front of the Street End. Tony blasted the ball as hard as he could and found the bottom corner with a class shot. Goodison erupted! And as promised, we rioted! Relive that moment here;

FA Cup Semi Final (First Half) v Liverpool

I know it didn't end well, but we had to include this purely for the first half. After the incredible performance against Sunderland in the Quarter Final, all eyes were on the Merseyside Derby at Wembley. I only plan on talking about the first half as we all know what happened in the second. Everton dominating. 25000 Blues creating an incredible atmosphere. And in the 24th minute, Jelavic with a classy finish resulted in absolute mayhem from the Blue end of Wembley. That first half and the half time break will live long in my memory. It's a pity we couldn't hang on.

Part 3 to follow....

Best Everton Moments Of 2012... (Part 1)

With the year coming to an end, we thought we'd gather the best Everton moments of 2012. We've had some ups and downs over the past year but there are some moments that will last in the memory. We asked our followers on Twitter and our visitors on Facebook to send in theirs and we compiled the best. Here's Part 1;

Manchester United 4-4 Everton

This game was brought up a lot by Blues when we asked for your best moments of the year. What a game it was! 1-0 up. 3-1 down. 4-2 down. And at full time, 4-4. Marouane Fellaini had one of his best performances of his career. Jelavic continued his impressive goal scoring form. And that goal by Steven Pienaar which lost the league for United. Unbelievable. Especially after the disappointment of the Semi Final at Wembley.

Sunderland 0-2 Everton 

I think it's safe to say, this game was one of the best away game we've seen in years! 7,000 Blues in Sunderland on a Tuesday night. The atmosphere was absolutely incredible. And the performance was brilliant! Jelavic at it again with his one touch finishing. And good old David Vaughan slotting home a second to finish the game. If only the Semi Final could live up to this game...

Felli Loses His Head

Marouane Fellaini could face a lengthy ban from the FA in the coming days after a number of incidents in the 1-1 draw away to Stoke.

The Belgian international was involved in 4 incidents during the game with Stoke defender Ryan Shawcross but fortunately for the Blues, the referee didn't see them and therefore no action was taken. But, the camera's located all over the Britannia Stadium caught all of the incidents perfectly.

The first of the 4, Fellaini clearly head butted Shawcross whilst Everton prepared to take a corner. Then, again at another Everton corner, Fellaini attempted to head butt Shawcross again before elbowing the Stoke defender. And lastly, during another corner, it was clear that Fellaini pushed Shawcross in the face. It was extremely lucky that the referee didn't see the incidents as Marouane would surely have been sent off.

Once the game was over, David Moyes expressed his disappointment in the Belgian international and encouraged a punishment towards him. Fellaini later released a statement in which he apologised to Shawcross, the Everton fans and his team mates.

It's only a matter of time before Fellaini is punished for his actions which we believe may be a 4/5 game match ban. I doubt we'll see Fellaini again this year.

New Peoples Blog Website Coming Soon...

After the fantastic reaction we have received from our visitors to The Peoples Blog, we have decided to construct a whole new website with more and better features to interact with.

Since starting the Blog in February, we've had over 20,000 Evertonians visit the site and add their views to our articles. But, as time went on, we felt like a Blog was not the right way to continue providing information to so many people. And so, after discussing it for some time, we've decided to scrap the Blog and build a completely new and better website.

We want the site to be as good and enjoyable for our visitors as possible. And so, we expect the site to be up and running within the next couple of weeks so we can make sure everything works as it should.

For the time being, the Blog will still be updated regularly. But once the website is up and running, the Blog will only be used for viewing past articles.

We also want to take this time to remind our visitors to get their favourite Everton memories and stories sent into us so we can put them into our eBook which will be available to buy within the next few months. To read more about this opportunity, please visit this page;

http://thepeoplesblog1878.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/contribute-to-our-ebook.html

More details will be posted soon.

Everton 2012/13 Third Kit

Today, in his first press conference as an Everton player, Kevin Mirallas posed in the new Everton 2012/13 Third Kit. This is the last of our 3 kits to be revealed for the much anticipated first season with our new manufacturer Nike.

Here is our new signing Kevin Mirallas modelling the new kit;

What A Start!

After years of poor starts, getting beat by the likes of QPR, Blackburn, Arsenal and Portsmouth, we've finally won on the first day of the season for the first time in 4 years! And what a way to do it! Beating a team that haven't lost an opening day fixture since 2004.

Personally, as much as I was looking forward to the game since the fixtures were announced, I was nervous. Pre Season didn't really give me much confidence in the team. I was under the impression that they would start in the usual way. But, just minutes into the game, I knew I was wrong. The Blues were playing just like they ended last season. The passing was brilliant. The runs off the ball were brilliant. I couldn't fault anything they did. And, with the noise that only Goodison produces on a night game behind them, I could only see us getting 3 points.

But, despite some brilliant chances and moves from Everton, we went into half time with no goals. De Gea was having a blinder. Keeping out efforts from Pienaar, Osman, Baines and Jelavic. Just like he did at Goodison last year.

The second half started the same. Everton dominating, United getting the odd chance but nothing to worry Howard. And then the best chance of the game so far when the ball dropped kindly to Leon Osman inside the box but he seen his volley smash off the underside of the bar. But, it weren't long before the deadlock was broke. A corner from Darron Gibson met the head of Maroune Fellaini who slotted the ball past past De Gea. Goodison went mental!

We could of had 3 or 4.

Overall, I couldn't of been more happy with our performance. They were fantastic.

My man of the match today was obviously Maroune Fellaini. He is going to be a special player. But, I was impressed with everyone. No-one let me down.