Everton win an amazing (and terrible) game of football - The Warm-Up

FRIDAY'S BIG STORIES Liquid Barclays Ad/> We start with a question. Was Everton 1-0 Newcastle the worst game of the season? It all depends, perhaps, on how you feel about football. Do you like to see it played, and played well? Do you like to see well-organised teams tussling with one another, do you like to see the very best players playing at the top of their ability, do you like to see thrilling attacking, stout defending, brain and body working as one? Because, yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of that.

Premier League'My bones must be going soft' — Lampard breaks hand celebrating Everton win10 HOURS AGO Everton started at 100 miles an hour, and that lasted for about five minutes until the adrenaline wore off. Then Newcastle established themselves, and the game had descended into a messy festival of minor fouls and overhit passes, flapping arms and pointing fingers. Newcastle looked a little better organised, or perhaps just a little more confident; Everton looked up for it but not entirely sure of how to turn that into anything like a chance.

The visitors' penalty area, in the absence of what you might call a proper striker, remained largely untroubled. Martin Dubravka organised his receipts and cleared out the cupboard under the sink. Watching poor teams play poor football is one thing.

In theory both these teams are at least adequately decent, by the standards of the league and set against one another, which only made the lack of coherence more frustrating. Sometimes, a game that remains goalless for an hour or so can be described as «one for the purists». This was one for nobody at all.