Tottenham Hotspur v Everton - as it happened

You can still read some pre-match stuff here, if you like If you're looking for team news ahead of today's game, you can check out our squad sheets right here . Whichever team Tottenham sends out, though, you have to wonder how much their routine has been disrupted after the club decided to close their training ground on Friday in a bid to contain a virus affecting players and staff. James Callow reports: Harry Redknapp is hoping the virus sweeping through the club will not derail Tottenham Hotspur's Champions League hopes as it did four years ago. After several first-team players fell ill this week it was decided to close the indoor facilities at the Spurs Lodge training ground in Chigwell, Essex, for sterilisation. Redknapp instead held his pre-match media briefing at White Hart Lane ahead of Sunday's home match with Everton. Vedran Corluka and Wilson Palacios were the worst affected but could recover in time for what could be a key match in Spurs' campaign to finish in the top four. Read the rest of the article here Alternatively, just start here 12.23pm: Everton are England's form side at the moment, but then as anyone who had the extremely depressing misfortune of seeing their Europa League performance in Lisbon on Thursday will know, they have the potential to be utterly rubbish. Perhaps they are, at present, the footballing equivalent of Gina G, who hit the high notes in Blighty but was distinctly second best when called upon to represent our nation in Europe (if your stomach is strong enough you can watch her 1996 Eurovision performance, introduced by Virginia Bottomley, for chrissakes, here ). One defeat in 12 is their current league run, though eagle-eyed stat-hawks will notice that they have won just one of their last seven away. Spurs, who closed their training ground last week after an outbreak of something totally hideous, are still grumbling about their game at Goodison in December, where they fluffed a two-goal lead and a stoppage-time penalty to draw 2-2. They list Jermain Defoe as a doubt today, and give Peter Crouch a late fitness test, leaving the way clear for Roman Pavlyuchenko to continue his recent goalscoring run. 12.27pm: And we've already got some teams ! And they're quite interesting – Defoe: in! Pavluchenko: in! Saha: out! Bilyaletdinov: on the bench! Tottenham: Gomes, Corluka, Bassong, Dawson, Bale, Kranjcar, Huddlestone, Palacios, Modric, Pavlyuchenko, Defoe. Subs: Alnwick, Kaboul, Crouch, Gudjohnsen, Kyle Walker, Dervite, Assou-Ekotto. Everton: Howard, Neville, Heitinga, Distin, Baines, Anichebe, Arteta, Pienaar, Osman, Rodwell, Yakubu. Subs: Nash, Yobo, Jagielka, Bilyaletdinov, Donovan, Vaughan, Gosling. Referee: Steve Bennett. 12.48pm: This is the time when I would be bringing you the most exciting nuggets of pre-match blather from the ESPN team. I'm waiting. 12.58pm: The players are on the pitch, we're just a few moments (and adverts) from kick-off)... 1min: They're off! 3mins: The character getting the early praise is Tottenham's groundsman, Darren Baldwin. The pitch is looking pretty sharp given how close this match apparently was to being rained off. 4mins: Anichebe gives the ball to Defoe, he feeds Pavlyuchenko – decent link-up between the Spurs strikers, but Phil Neville steals the ball before the Russian can shoot. 7mins: It's actually a perfect pitch, the ball's zipping about like Zippy at the zip-lovers' annual zip convention. Long, fast, true passes along the ground are the theme so far. I'm feeling optimistic about this one. 9mins: Phil Neville has been booked for a rather amateurish tackle on Gareth Bale out near the left corner flag. 10mins: Tottenham haven't quite had 100% of possession so far, but it's close. GOAL! Tottenham 1 Everton 0 (Pavlyuchenko, 11) Spurs get their reward for all the early possession. They don't have to work very hard for it, though – a longish ball to Defoe, who's given way too much time to turn and run into the right side of Everton's penalty area. His shot is low and hard and woefully off target, so much so that his strike partner is able to turn it in. 14mins: Gina G is Australian, as Gary Naylor so correctly points out. I have changed the offending paragraph so it looks like I didn't make the mistake in the first place [bursts into evil cackle]. 16mins: Chris Waddle is letting rip at the Everton midfield, who have "done nothing" and are "all showing to feet" when what they require is "legs". 17mins: Everton win a corner, Heurelho Gomes comes to claim it. He jumps alone, gets both gloves on the ball, then drops it at an astonished Yakubu's feet. The ball is eventually hacked clear, but that was abysmal goalkeeping. 19mins: It's been emphatically different since the goal, with Everton having at least as much of the play as Tottenham. "They're asking a few questions," agrees Chris Waddle. 20mins: Bale does terrifically well to get back at Anichebe and win the ball, but the Everton striker, making his first start for aeons after a nasty injury, takes a worrying amount of time to get up. Seems OK, though... 21mins: Palacios passes to Pavlyuchenko, who cuts in from the left wing and lashes a shot from 20-odd yards that starts heading to the near post and then veers at the last moment towards the centre of goal. Howard pushes it away. 25mins: Quite an even game now. Everton have just had a couple of corners without creating a chance, then Bale bursts down the left, crosses well and Kranjcar heads at goal. Not very well, but it's a chance. 26mins: Pienaar crosses from the left, Gomes comes to claim, gets half a hand on it, spills it and wins a ludicrous free-kick even though Yakubu didn't touch him at all. There's hope here for Everton. GOAL! Very good goal indeed! Croatia 2, Everton 0 (Modric 28) Corluka, Kranjcar and Modric play keep-ball down the right, totally befuddling the Everton defence and finding more and more space in increasingly dangerous areas with every tippy-tappy pass until Modric shoots over Howard and into the net very stylishly from 15 yards or so, possibly with the aid of a deflection. No non-Croatian foot touched the ball for about two minutes. 33mins: Suddenly Everton are looking very much like they did on Thursday, letting their opponents pass freely in front of their defence and hoping for the best. 35mins: It says something of Tottenham's current inflated levels of confidence that Bassong just intercepted the ball on the edge of his own area, layed it off to a teammate, thundered 80 yards up the pitch, dummied the return ball and sprinted into the penalty area all set to collect his goal of the season award when he met Bale's cross with a stunning header into the top corner. Bale's cross, however, went straight into Phil Neville's midriff. 37mins: "Can I just say how disappointing it is, from an Arsenal fan's perspective, that Good Ol' Harry has finally realised how good Pavlyuchenko is," writes Chris Sturrock. "His previous neglect of the Russian had been a real source of amusement and reassurance to me. I just hope he has a customary change of heart about him before the derby game at White Hart Lane." 40mins: Everton's first and best chance, Neville crossing from the right and Rodwell sending a free header wide from eight yards or so. I still think they've got hope here, though obviously they can't concede another. 42mins: Which they very nearly do. Bale crosses low from the left and a lunging Defoe is inches away from turning it in at the near post. 44mins: A decent cross from the right and a couple of clever lay-offs result in Spurs having an excellent shooting chance from 20 yards, bang central. Sadly, it falls to Wilson Palacios. And it's a left-foot volley. 45mins: We'll have two bonus minutes at the end of this first half. 45mins: Spurs break, four against four, and at the end of it Bale shoots across goal and wide, with Defoe and Pavlyuchenko both to his right had he chosen to pass. He gets a corner, though I didn't see it hit anyone. Half-time: It's been a good half from where I'm sitting, but then I'm not sitting on the Everton bench. I expect it's been a fairly miserable half there. Lots of action, a very high tempo, a couple of goals, neither of them bad and one of them very good. But Gomes looks less than secure, and as a result Everton could still score at any time, and end up getting something out of this. Of course, for that to happen they'll have to play much better and stop conceding so many goals... 2.04pm: The players are coming back out now, but who? Changes afoot, we hear... 46mins: Peeep! They're off! Again! Jagielka has come on for Osman, that's the only change it seems. 47mins: Heitinga, newly arrived in midfield after Jagielka's introduction, thumps a lot shot that Gomes saves and holds. "This game kicked off at 5am here in California, and I made the crucial mistake of drinking two cups of coffee before verifying that Donovan was actually in the line-up," writes Eric Calhoun. "Now I'm too caffeinated to fall back asleep, and bitterly enjoying how bad Everton look. There may or may not be a German word for this, but as an American it's my duty to not learn any of them foreign words." 49mins: "Older Evertonians may recognise your photo as a regular scene at Goodison in the 70s as a mother, unable to locate her son, peers into the Boys' Pen with some stewards behind her," writes Gary Naylor. If you're reading this at any time other than right now, I will probably have changed the picture and that comment will have made no sense to you whatsoever. Sorry. 51mins: Huddlestone's done something nasty to his ankle, and it looks like Spurs will replace him with Younes Kaboul. 53mins: So we now have Heitinga and Kaboul in a rather defender-heavy midfield. GOAL! Tottenham 2 Everton 1 (Yakubu 55) By some way the worst goal of the day – an overhit corner headed back across goal by Rodwell, totally missed at the near post by Anichebe and Gomes and Yakubu has the entire goal to aim at from a yard out. 56mins: Great save by Gomes, after Rodwell's half-volley initially appears to be on its way in. 59mins: The other danger for Everton is if Phil Neville, who's just conceded a foul after bringing Modric down from behind, gets a second yellow card. That wouldn't help much, I'd have thought. 60mins: "I have somethig to add to Chris Sturrock's comments on 37 mins," volunteers Si Williams. "It's not that Pavlyuchenko is better than Crouch, or even that he plays in a very different style - it's more that teammates around him think they play in different styles. As soon as Crouch walks on the pitch the players regress to Sunderland circa 1999, floating hopeful diagonal balls out of defence, hoping to graze his ear on the way down. WIth Pav they actually concentrate on passing the ball." 61mins: Gareth Bale, who's having another good game here, beats Nani's season-best lollipop record on his way to blasting a shot straight at one of the defenders who are standing about a yard away. 63mins: Landon Donovan is coming on for Anichebe, which has got to be a good thing as far as Everton are concerned. 68mins: Spurs still have all the quality, but they no longer have all the possession. The advantage of having a slightly dodgy keeper is that you're never tempted just to sit on a one-goal lead, so we're still having some fun here. 71mins: Eidur Gudjohnsen is coming on for Defoe. 71mins: Spurs are, though, trying to find Pavlyuchenko quicker. What that means is that they hit the ball early and long, so there's nobody up in time to support him, so he loses the ball. 72mins: Pienaar picks up the ball about 10 yards into the Spurs half and then runs way too easily into their penalty area before shooting too close to Gomes. 74mins: Arteta is booked for a fairly cynical foul on Modric. A question: have Spurs ever scored from a move that Palacios has been involved in? He rarely gives possession away, but he always seems to slow things down, and frequently send the ball backwards. 76mins: Now Pienaar is booked for pulling back Corluka. From the free-kick, Kranjcar bursts onto Pavlyuchenko's backheel and shoots left-footed low from just outside the penalty area, too close to Howard. 77mins: Hideous ugly unbelievable miss of the month, from Landon Donovan, who only had to tap in Rodwell's cross-shot at the far post but managed to spear it a foot wide. Many, many heads in hands, one of them David Moyes's. 81mins: Vaughan comes on for Rodwell, and for Spurs Crouch replaces Pavlyuchenko. 83mins: Pienaar passes into the Spurs penalty area, but Donovan and Vaughan have made the same run and get in each other's way. 84mins: That leads to a corner, from which Jagielka heads over when well placed, after a simple run to the near post deals with whoever's supposed to be marking him. 86mins: Another cynical Everton challenge, this time Heitinga getting a yellow card for bringing down Kranjcar. 87mins: As the tension has risen, the quality has plummeted. The last 10 minutes have been very messy. Everton are pushing for an equaliser, and when Tottenham threaten to break either they give the ball away stupidly or an Everton player cynical ends the move. 90mins: Don't go anywhere – there are six minutes of stoppage time to be played! Six! 90mins: Audible and quite amusing befuddlement from the home fans when the fourth official showed that board. 91mins: Kranjcar, who's seen a lot of the ball today, strikes a fine left-foot shot from just outside the area that Howard turns away. 93mins: Modric is booked for kicking the ball away. Very tense now. Three minutes to play. 95mins: One minute to play. Whistles ring around the ground... 96mins: Spurs get a free-kick in the middle of their own half, and with 10 seconds of stoppage-time to play surely that's the end of it. Full time: And indeed it was. I don't think many neutrals would deny that Tottenham deserved to win, but the point was that they very nearly didn't – Everton missed two decent second-half chances, and one total sitter. Post-match thoughts: A decent game, until nerves replaced quality in the last 10 minutes or so. Everton were poor first half, and while Tottenham threatened a great deal less in the second they still had the three best players on show in Modric, Kranjcar and Bale. Spurs go back up to fourth, but they don't for me look quite good enough to finish there. It's been a pleasure etc etc. Now go and watch (or follow right here ) that Carling Cup final. Bye!