Phil Brown’s previous visit to Merseyside ended with a vote of confidence from the Hull City board following a 6-1 destruction by Liverpool. His days of being on the brink of the sack may have passed, but the threat to Hull’s Premier League status remains very much alive after this stroll for Everton.
Mikel Arteta orchestrated the return to winning ways for David Moyes’s side, who have now won six successive league games at Goodison Park – their best sequence in four years. He scored twice and forced Richard García to head into his own net. Despite a superb equaliser and first league goal for Tom Cairney, the visitors were a distant second-best throughout and only Everton’s generosity spared them from a heavier defeat than on the opposite side of Stanley Park.
Hull can at least take solace in the return of Jimmy Bullard, the man upon whom survival arguably rests, in his first start since December. As Arteta has discovered, it can be a slow journey back to form and fitness after a serious knee injury but the Spaniard, in his finest display since his return from an 11-month absence, is getting there.
Arteta gave Everton an early lead when Leon Osman released Yakubu wide on the left and, from the Nigerian’s inviting cross to the back post, the midfielder ghosted in unmarked to despatch a deceiving volley past the keeper at the near post. Yakubu then won and wasted a controversial penalty when he fell under a challenge from Kamil Zayette but stroked a lazy, arrogant penalty that Boaz Myhill saved comfortably. As well he should have.
Yakubu’s miss seemed to assume added significance when Phil Jagielka, another player starting after a long-term knee problem, headed Bullard’s free-kick clear and Cairney swept an outstanding volley beyond the keeper from the edge of the area. But a fine collective move, involving Osman, Victor Anichebe and a nonchalant back-heel from Steven Pienaar, prised apart the Hull defence and enabled Arteta to roll his second into the far corner.
García headed into his own net attempting to clear Arteta’s chip over Myhill in the second half, before Landon Donovan, on his scheduled final appearance at Goodison before returning to LA
