"Oh say can you see...."

By Chris Kirwan
February 26 2003

Brian McBride has spoken about how much he enjoyed the atmosphere at the 2-1 victory over Sunderland. His second half double inspired Goodison, and the American got a great ovation when replaced by Super Kev late on.

The signing from "the Crew", said,

"I remember the day that I got here I was told the atmosphere would be great and it certainly was. It was a lot of fun."

McBride seems to know his place in the squad. Even if he does score plenty of goals during his 3-month spell a move to Goodison is extremely unlikely at his age, but McBride looks as if he is determined to make his mark on the Premiership. Despite being far from match fit he has provided the Blues with a much-needed understudy for Campbell, and already looks like he is a popular player amongst the squad. His start for the Blues is reminiscent of Joe-Max Moore’s, but at least with McBride being on loan we won’t have to suffer when the goals dry up. He has added some depth to the attack, giving Moyes another target man to cover for Campbell while Chadwick and Duncan are out of action. He also spectacularly lives up to the sterotypical image of an American "jock"; as Alan Partridge would put it, he looks,

"As American as mum's apple tart, or chocolate chip biscuits"

But despite McBride's impact, the most encouraging aspect of the weekend’s victory was that stand in players keep making claims for regular first team berths. This is largely because Moyes has made it clear that if you come in and play well, you’ll keep your place. Pistone, Gemmill, and Watson were all impressive for the Blues on Saturday, and I’d imagine that the likes of Yobo, Hibbert, Carsley and Li Tie might have to settle for being substitutes in the near future. It has created a situation whereby players must be even more anxious of injury for fear of being kept out by their replacement, a state of affairs that has not occurred at Goodison for years.

However, the Blues still need to be more clinical in front of goal. It should have been a much more comfortable conclusion to the game, and had Sunderland managed to sneak a late equaliser we would have been ruing the early Stubbs misses, and the failure to capitalise on our second half dominance. Sunderland were an extremely poor side, and it would have been a travesty if the Blues had not got the deserved 3 points, but luckily they were so bad that they seemed to accept the defeat quite readily. The Blues’ first 3 points of 2003 put us right back in the race for Europe, and hopefully the cup will be a distraction for our competition….. see Shrewsbury was a blessing in disguise!

Other news: Li Wei Feng has returned to China. Ex-Blue, Alec Cleland has been forced to retire. Li Tie will play against Brazil on February 12 now that the Blues are out of the cup.