Moyesy says: "We're through to the semi-final. It's further than we've been, but it's not the final and it's not winning it - that's what I'd really like to do. I was wondering after the first half what I was going to do, because we know it wasn't the Everton that we have seen in recent times. They needed to be told and were told in no uncertain terms at half time the standards that I have set.

Steve Round did a great job at half-time, we got them right and got them ready for the second half. We dropped Tim Cahill deeper in the second. He's been doing so well upfront we've been loathed to move him from there because his goalscoring has been vital. At this present time we don't have that many goal scorers in the team. To step him back was a big decision, bringing on Louis wasn't.

But I didn't want to bring him on too early because of fitness. Today he got 45 minutes and so hopefully he's a lot closer to starting games now." (09/03/09)

* All the ball boys were girls.

IF ANY EVERTON FAN WANTS TO WRITE A REPORT OF ANY OF THIS SEASON'S GAMES, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO SO. JUST E-MAIL IT TO info@bluekipper.com AND WE WILL PUT IT HERE.

Everton 2-1 Middlesbrough By Ong Jiing Yih, Singapore

Everton are into the semi-finals of the FA Cup after a 2-1 win over Middlesbrough. Having endured a sluggish first half, Louis Saha's entry changed the course of the game, making a right nuisance of himself as he pulled Boro defenders apart with relish. Going behind to a header by David Wheater towards the stroke of half time, a rousing team talk during the interval did wonders for the team, as strikes from Marouane Fellaini and that man Saha turned the tide in the Blues' favour. Not even a glaring late miss by Saha could dampen spirits, with the prospect of watching their beloved Toffees play at Wembley filling all fans with excitement. After, why put all the hard work to waste having already dumped the likes of the s***e and Villa out in earlier rounds?

Both teams begun with relatively unchanged lineups, save for 'Screech' who returned to the first eleven in place of the similarly hirsute and cup-tied Jo. Boro began brightly however, seeking to prove a point after the midweek mauling by Spurs at White Hart Lane, by moving around the ball with relative ease. Tim Howard was called into action very early on, dashing a long way out from his goal in a bid to stop Julio Arca from crossing. Ten minutes later, an exchange of passes between Justin Hoyte and Matthew Bates saw the latter cutback for one-time Arsenal player Jeremie Aliadiere. Sadly, the Frenchman did the hard part of stealing into the area only to blast the ball over the bar. [Remember a similar miss with his left foot in our 1-0 win against Arsenal on March 18, 2007?]

In between, our man Tim Cahill could only lament on being penalised in the box, having looked to take Fellaini's knockdown in his stride after some nice set up play by a speculative long ball by Joseph Yobo. Leon Osman was the next to try his luck, pummeling the ball towards goal. From the resultant corner, Yobo leaped highest and headed straight at Bradley Jones. As the half wore on, Everton realised the size of the task as they sought to find an impetus. With skipper Phil Neville mopping things up in the middle of the park, Steven Pienaar and Leighton Baines were able to move forward and probe for openings. Five minutes before the break, Everton thought they had broken the deadlock, but for Jones to claw away a first time header from Fellaini following a deep cross by Phil Jagielka. Boro then took the lead slightly against the run of play, after Yobo's clearance fell into the path of Bates, who crossed unchallenged onto the head of the unmarked Wheater. Despite Howard's best efforts, the flight was the ball was too quick and he could not keep it out.

Never the best time to concede going into the break, the team looked like playing below par and they knew they had to come out of their shell. With that in mind, David Moyes sensed enough was enough and proceeded to bring on Saha in place of Jack Rodwell. Before one could see the desired effects of the switch, the fans had to endure the uncomfortable sight of Boro wreaking havoc in the box. Tuncay Sanli slalomed his way deep into Everton territory and proceeded to square across to Aliadiere, who succeeded in finding the legs of Joleon Lescott at the near post. That near-miss seemed to galvanise the team, as an attack found Osman waiting and calling for the ball outside the box. He played a pass towards Jagielka, who laid onto Cahill next to him. With one look, he centred towards Fellaini as the Belgian beat Robert Huth in the air and made the most of Jones' poor positioning to head home. 1-1 after 50 minutes, game on!

If that was great, even better was to come six minutes later. Boro were stretched as Osman launched a deep cross for Saha who tried to reach but didn't, loosing his footing in his process. Pienaar reacted quickest to retrieve the ball and sent in the ball. The tie was turned around after Saha leapt majestically to nod past Jones with 56 minutes gone on the clock. Goodison Park roared with delight as the team had now found a new spring in their step. Baines could have added a third through a set piece though, striking the crossbar via a freekick with Jones rooted to the spot. Boro and Gareth Southgate in particular, who once had the better luck in cup encounters against us in the past, felt a need to change their game plan late on. In came Marvin Emnes and Adam Johnson for Arca and Bates respectively. However, that was as good as they got with Stewart Downing arriving just in the nick of time to make full use of Emmanuel Pogatetz's long punt. Lescott prevented a shock by shepherding the Boro winger even before he could pull the trigger.

Osman then proceeded to flash his attempt wide from range, after giving Pogatetz the runaround. With Boro being dissected, a third goal looked to have come Everton' way. However, having found himself in a great position, Saha missed a sitter after ballooning his effort over the bar. Fans were getting nervous with Boro determined to mount a concerted attempt in the closing stages once match referee Mark Halsey signalled four minutes of added time. The heart nearly jumped out of the mouths of many after Howard almost made a fatal hash of his catch from a direct Gary O'Neil freekick. Thankfully, Lescott was determined to preserve Everton's passage into the next round and hence hacked away the loose ball ahead of the lurking Tuncay. Seconds away from the end, Halsey blew the final whistle and Goodison Park roared in delight. The subsequent draw then pits Everton against Manchester United, to be played on the weekend of April 18/19. Come on you Blues! Ong Jiing Yih.

Well in the words of one gifted ex blue turned cock heed pundit who's name rhymes with mandy hay, "thash was a game of 2 hav vees!" , the blue half of the fixture struggling to find any momentum at all though whilst Boro pressed and attacked from the whistle. The Everton back four seemed intent on bypassing the wingers Osman and Piennar for large portions of the game, relying on the "twat it as far as you can up the field strategy". With Arteta now out for the foreseeable future we have to play to the strengths of the rest of the squad and how this can be achieved by hoofing the ball up field to Cahill is a question many Evertonians may be asking.

Boro took the lead after some extremely dodgy defending that allowed cat walk model and Ian Dowie love child david Wheater a free header to put Boro 1-0 up. Questions may be raised as to why we have an established Danish right back international who has put in some pretty polished reserve performances, sitting on the bench whilst disrupting what is arguably the most consistent 2 centre backs in the premiership in order to accommodate joey yobo ???? Tight squad? Keeping players happy? One plus may be that whilst Jags has done a decent job it may make Tony Hibbert's detractors realise just what a quality defender he is and how much he is missed.

However 1-0 down just on the stroke of half time was far from ideal and it was up to Mr Moyes to figure out what most of the crowd already knew what needed to be done, and to his credit he did it and put on the only real class we have available at the moment and introduced Saha. He made another immediate impact, Cahill released into his more natural supporting roll marshaled the midfield with simple but effectual passing bringing Piennar and Osman into the game more and provided an inch perfect cross for hair bear Felliani to direct a header over the misplaced boro keeper. Everton 1 Boro 1.

The influence of Cahill in his more natural midfield role again allowed Piennar more freedom which enabled him to provide the telling cross for Saha to rise above the defence to guide home a superb header to make it 2-1 to Everton. If there is need for a back up free kick specialist for Arteta the impressive Leighton Baines staked his claim with a terrific free kick that hit the crossbar and would have deservedly given Everton a 3-1 lead. However Boro pressed pushing players forward and a free kick by Downing was dropped by the normally reliable Howard and it took quick thinking and even quicker reactions by Lescott to turn the ball away from danger. At the end of the day it has been said that Everton are grinding out results with no quality in depth. Mr Saha may have something to say about that if he can stay fit he is the class that Everton need with Yakubu, Arteta and many more laying on Basil Rathbone's treatment couch. If Moyes can keep him from joining them and keep him on the field then he may yet make Alex Ferguson rue the day he let him come to Everton F.C. Joeverton.

During the build up to Sunday’s match you heard it almost to the point of tedium: few of us can forget the footy horror of Sunday, 10th March 2002. It was the day we played Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium and lost 3-0 in an FA Cup sixth round tie. All the goals were conceded in a first half horror show. A few days later Walter Smith was gone as manager, though the decision to sack him came after an equally appalling 1-0 defeat at West Ham the previous Wednesday. Afterwards, the boardroom must have resembled Omaha beach circa 1944. David Moyes was in place for the next match at home to Fulham. So that loss to ‘Boro could be described rightly as the end of the Walter Smith era and the beginning of the David Moyes revolution, which is what Goodison’s pitch-side propagandist claimed at the time. None of us could guess how dramatic would be the improvement during the next few seasons. Many reeled for days in the aftermath of the notorious game in Smogland. I can still see one middle-aged fan at the final whistle trying to gouge holes in each side of his head with his fists. It really was that bad for some. It was obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse Walter wasn’t going to survive the debacle.

(For those of wider interests it was confirmation, if it was needed, of Trotsky’s observation – and who should know better – that The Revolution only happens when there’s no other way out. It’s worth bearing that in mind during the next few years of nonfooty issues. There’s life yet in the cornered capitalist rodent. Those who think there’s something new about current circumstances and how they will be handled didn’t pay attention during their modern history lessons. Just as those who blame ineffable Margaret Thatcher for the phrase, “There’s no such thing as society,” have been lured by a very large red herring. That phrase [properly, “......there is no such entity as ‘society’......”] originated with sophist White Russian/American Ayn Rand. For those who want to know, you can find it on page 15 of “The Virtue of Selfishness” [Signet 1961] and other places in her published far right diatribes.)

So here we were in a repeat fixture almost seven years later to the day, this time at Goodison Park. Many thought it would be a cake-walk. I didn’t. We were still without our primum mobile, Mikky Arteta. The loss is huge but thankfully nobody at the club has donned self-pitying sack cloth and ashes. My biggest concern was whether we had Leon Osman and Steven Pienaar as centre mids – a forced team seppuku of Moyesy’s every now and then. Which no doubt would have incited the tiny anti-Moyes crackpot gang to issue praemunire, while other morons would have urged praecipe. Even after all our injuries and emergency team formations there are still some loons out there think all a manager – any manager – has to do is wave some kind of magic wand and success is assured. Life, of course, has never worked like that. You work with the mortal clay you have.

My worst fears were realised: it was indeed a gossamer centre midfield of Osman-Rodwell-Pienaar. But in seeking a balance with what he had, what else was Moyesy supposed to do? We had nobody else. One glance at the bench told you that. We aren’t so much running on empty as pushing the tank uphill. Meanwhile, ‘Boro weren’t up to much except trying to stave off looming relegation, though their midfield still looked more formidable than ours. The first half expressed all of this in stark terms. It was awful, but ‘Boro were a better than us. Understandably neophyte Jack Rodwell had his inevitable poor game and played like a poussin while trying to compensate for Leon and Steven, who were blown around like two loose paper tissues and kept giving the ball away anyway. Our two “strikers” – strictly a utility term you understand – Marouane Fellaini and a slightly-deeper Tim Cahil were given a right good going over by their two big centre backs. It got so bad I thought ‘Boro’s big German defender was going to either, (a) rip the shirt off Fellaini’s back, or (b) strangle said striker. Our defence was sound enough despite Tim Howard having a strangely unsettled game; unfortunately, Phil Neville was constantly pulled out of position as he too tried to compensate for centre mid weakness. In other words, the team balance was all wrong.

‘Boro missed the best chance of the half when their man side-footed over from right side when he should have buried it. Nevertheless, we had three reasonable chances in the Street End, all headers, two from Maro and one from Joey. We were clinging to hope though and the inevitable happened a minute before half time when a headed clearance went to their unmarked wide right man, Pienaar got brushed aside like an Autumn leaf and the cross got headed home with Tim doing a marionette impression. It was as short, sharp and Gothic as Raymond Chandler’s prose and it was no more than ‘Boro deserved. As the teams trooped in we wondered why we this season we have leaked goals either side of the half way mark, and where any revival could come from. After all, that was our best side and we had virtually nothing on the bench. It looked bleak. Wembley dreams were on hold, if not fading into nothingness.

At the start of the second half Moyesy did the only thing left open to him. He brought on Louis Saha for Jack Rodwell (he’ll be back, he’s too good not to) and shuffled the formation. Tim Cahill dropped back and joined Phil Neville at centre mid, while Leon Osman and Steven Pienaar went wide right and left respectively. It was our last throw of the dice, or even the half-time crockery. And mercifully it worked..........astonishingly, within ten minutes and for the rest of the half. ‘Boro had maybe ten minutes towards the end but they were never really in it afterwards. It was all one way. The turnaround was as complete as it was unexpected, certainly by this fan.

The equaliser came a few minutes into the half with a move down the right wing. Jags – yet another magnificent performance – was wide right for some Moyesy-divined reason and laid it back to Tim Cahill, who curved in a wicked, hanging cross to the right side of the goal area. Whence came Fellaini, bush-haired (yes, yes, I know) and all, and headed it over a hopelessly out of position young ‘Boro ‘keeper. Five minutes later and blow me we were in front, this time courtesy of our two first half flotsam and jetsam, Leon Osman and Steven Pienaar. ‘Boro’s defender headed out weakly on our right, Leon powered (yes, the irony) forward into the right side edge of the box and clipped over a short cross which Louis Saha tried to volley in spectacularly, but failed equally spectacularly. The ball carried to the left wing where Steven had time and space to collect it, turn and hit over a right footed centre as good as anything The Best Little Spaniard We Know has delivered this season. By which time Louis was on his feet and homing in on the left edge of the goal area, bisected the cross perfectly and headed in with the kind of deadly certainty we attached to the Big Yin. It was a brilliant second goal.

Poor ‘Boro were blown away and looked it. In the end the game turned into a hic jacet for them. Late on, Bainsey hit the bar with a superb free kick. But typically we had a rocky moment right at the end when ‘Boro got a free kick, centre, about thirty metres out. With time almost up their man did the only thing he could, he blasted it goalward, it swerved wickedly, hit Tim on the chest and rebounded towards their attacker. For a moment the world stood still. Then Joleon hacked it clear and the ref blew for full time. We were through. Time to celebrate and savour the moment, which we all did, right royally.

A final word about my man of the match. No question here, it was Phil Neville. And he did it exactly when needed. He and Tim Cahill formed an unlikely emergency centre mid duo that sealed up the holes so evident throughout the first half.

Now we are due to play Manchester United, a game which in theory we should lose by a wide margin. But as Greavesy used to say, ”It’s a fanny owld game.” And we have been here before, haven’t we........

*

What Do You Think The Score Will Be? e-mail info@bluekipper.com

* 3-1 to Everton. Saha, Cahill & Lescott. Sonia

* 2-0 for Everton. Saha with 2. Knocker

* I will go for a 1-1 draw with Tiny getting our equaliser. COYB! Blue Oz

Fingers crossed, toes crossed, everything crossed. I am happy that it is a Sunday, happy its on Sultana TV, like the Villa and shite games earlier in the competition. My grundies and socks will be the same, yes I have washed them, same top, same jeans, same trip to the match, superstitious, you bet I am. Moyesy though is taking it all in his stride, and as always injury worries are top of his mind. Tiny, Leon and Peanuts all have had to put their feet up since Wednesdays bore draw against Blackburn as they are nursing slight knocks. Hibbo has joined the long term absentees looking for space on Basil's treatment table, but his diagnosis is slightly better than his team mates. Screech's back is playing up, and I suppose that is no surprise with the weight he is carrying on his head. Jo is cup tied, so Louis should partner Tiny up front, with the back four of The Jag, Bainsey, Roger and Joey hopefully carrying on in protecting Tim's goal. So it seems the midfield is the problem area, and fingers crossed they all come through their fitness tests, but remember we now have Jack the Lad, and goal hero against the shite, Dan G Laaa to call on. If all fit, I am sure Moyesy will go with his most experienced line up, as we attempt to reach Wembley for the first time since 1995. If the Blues reach the Semi's, it will be their twenty fifth appearance in the Worlds Premier Cup Competition (got to say that as we have a chance of winning it). If we do do it, it will be the hard way, Macclesfield apart, we have beaten Premiership opposition along the way. Form is good for us, still unbeaten at Goodison since early December 2008, and ironically our last visit to the last eight of the FA Cup was back in 2002, against Boro, losing 3-0 in Walter Smiths last match. COYB

Moyesy says: "Tim Cahill, Leon Osman and Steven Pienaar haven't trained since the game on Wednesday night. But I'm hopeful they will all be back training tomorrow. When I saw Ossie getting hit in the head the other night, I was thinking it was just our luck that he would have a fractured skull or something. But what I will say it that the players have coped really well, whoever I've put in, they have bonded together. We're not quite at the level we want to be at because of that, but the players understand, I hope the supporters do as well and we want them to be patient on Sunday - hopefully we can all get through together. He (Screech) has had a back problem. He actually cracked a small bone in his back so I'm hoping that he's going to be okay. I think it should be basically what we had before. Jo is cup-tied, but I think everyone else is roughly back. There have been a lot of disappointments here in the past - I'd like to put that right. I want to give them something that they can get excited by, so we're looking forward to getting through. But the draws in this competition have been really tough for us. There have been years when we've had difficult draws, and this year is one of those. Luckily enough for us we've got through those ties against Liverpool and Aston Villa and now we have another Premier League team - Middlesbrough. We can't take anything for granted, but I think there are signs that we are improving in the cups. Last year we got to the semi-final in the League Cup, we had a decent run in the Uefa Cup, so there are one or two signs that we are improving. Middlesbrough will have the Premier League in mind. The Cup could take the pressure of them though because you don't feel that at the end of the game you have to check the league table to see where you lie, so I suppose that does make it easier." (07/03/09)

Everton from: Howard, Jagielka, Lescott, Yobo, Baines, Osman, Cahill, Fellaini, Rodwell, Neville, Pienaar, Gosling, Saha, Nash, Van der Meyde, Castillo, Jacobsen, Baxter, Wallace.

Jogger's XI To Start: Howard, Baines, Lescott, Jagielka, Yobo, Neville, Osman, Piennar, Fellaini, Cahill, Saha

IF ANY EVERTON FAN WANTS TO WRITE A REPORT OF ANY OF THIS SEASON'S GAMES, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO SO. JUST E-MAIL IT TO info@bluekipper.com AND WE WILL PUT IT ON THE SITE.

Middlesbrough midfielder Mohamed Shawky faces a late fitness test after picking up a knee injury during a training session on Friday. Striker Marlon King will miss the game as he is cup-tied. They had a good win against the shite last week, but went down to a thumping midweek defeat against Spurs.

Boro have beaten Barrow, Wolves and De Hammers for the right to face the Blues in the last eight, and you have to go back to 1997 till they last reached the Final.

Pizza Man Gareth says: "Goodison is a great ground to play on. We've had a couple of results there and I won there in a quarter-final with Villa. It's a huge game for Everton, it's quite a while since they were in a cup final, so there's a fair bit of pressure on them and as the home team they will be totally expected to win. We've got a game on Sunday that everyone in the town should be looking forward to. We're rank underdogs but we've got a brilliant opportunity to get to an FA Cup semi-final.

Boro from: Jones, Turnbull, Hoyte, McMahon, Pogatetz, Taylor, Huth, Wheater, O'Neil, Bates, Walker, Arca, Downing, Johnson, Shawky, Emnes, Alves, Tuncay, Aliadiere.