Osman rescues draw for Everton

A fine strike from Leon Osman salvaged a 1-1 draw for Everton after Robert Huth’s header had looked like helping Stoke to their first away win of the season at Goodison Park on Sunday.

David Moyes’s side were hoping to capitalise on their fine recent run by seeing off a Stoke team who are notoriously poor on the road, but in a game that failed to spark, a point was the fair result.

The home side remain 10th in the Premier League following the result while Stoke move up to 12th.

The game started quietly and the first real chance fell to Tim Cahill after eight minutes following a superb through ball from Marouane Fellaini. But the Australian midfielder could not make the most of his position on the edge of the box and shot wide.

Stoke’s ambition seemed to be limited as they regularly got all their men behind the ball in an attempt to starve Everton of chances but that approach also meant they could create little of note themselves.

However, Everton did break them down on one occasion and should have scored when Fellaini and Cahill again linked up.

After 15 minutes, the Belgian midfielder delivered a fine cross to the penalty spot and although Cahill was unmarked, he could not guide his free header passed a grateful Thomas Sorensen who managed to smother.

Everton had scored 14 goals in their last five matches in all competitions but the determination of Stoke to not concede was simply too strong in the first half.

The home side could not break Stoke down although a Diniyar Bilyaletdinov strike did appear to hit Ryan Shawcross on the hand in the box, only for referee Andre Marriner to wave away Everton’s penalty claims.

Just before the break, Osman shot from the edge of the box and although the ball was travelling at speed, Sorensen managed a full length dive to tip the effort over.

Straight after half-time Everton were left to rue their inability to score when Stoke took the lead from a corner.

A Matthew Etherington corner floated over Everton’s Sylvain Distin who mistimed his jump and Huth did the rest, crashing his 50th minute header home to put the visitors ahead.

Stoke had not won away from home in the Premier League since they beat Hull City back in April and their hopes of holding on against Everton were soon dashed when Osman produced a moment of brilliance to equalise.

Having been put through on goal by Heitinga, Osman looked up and curled a wonderful effort into the top corner from the edge of the box to restore parity.

With 20 minutes left, Cahill once more headed straight at Sorensen following a wonderful Louis Saha cross to the back-post but other noteworthy moments continued to be few and far between.

Moyes brought Ayegbeni Yakubu and Jo on late on to try and find a winning intervention but it never seemed likely as the match drifted out to what seemed its deserved conclusion.