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Match Report
Portsmouth v Everton 13 December 2003
ROONEY INSPIRES EVERTON WIN
Portsmouth 1-2 Everton
Wayne Rooney started the match on the bench, narrowly avoided dismissal in the second half, but in between inspired Everton to a 2-1 victory over hapless Portsmouth. The teen sensation scored the crucial second for Everton after Lee Carsley had cancelled out an early Jason Roberts strike, but a moment of childish petulance that saw him shove Steve Stone over left him stalking off the pitch in the belief that he had been dismissed.
To general amazement at Fratton Park, Rooney was called back onto the pitch by Uriah Rennie and shown a yellow card - with the sternest ticking off offered by manager David Moyes and not the referee.
For 25 minutes Everton had not only been Rooney-less but clueless as well.
A wonderful through ball by Teddy Sheringham had left the returning Roberts with the simplest task of slotting the ball home, and until Steve Watson limped off to be replaced by Everton's boy-wonder, Portsmouth were notably in the ascendancy.
In fairness Rooney had little to do with The Toffees' opener - a fine pass by Kevin Kilbane releasing Gary Naysmith who cut past the bizarre rush of goalkeeper Pavel Srnicek and allowed Carsley to side-foot into the untended net.
Tomasz Radzinski then had a good chance to put his side ahead, but found his angled shot deflected wide, before Rooney did put the visitors ahead.
It was another Srnicek mistake that handed the teenager his chance - the former Newcastle man ineffectually flailing at a cross and not managing to recover in time to stop Rooney's shot from crossing the line.
A nervous opening to the second half saw both Kilbane and Rooney denied, the former stinging Srnicek's hands with a fine drive and the latter having a close range effort blocked.
Yakubu Aiyegbeni should have levelled the game, but after racing through delayed and delayed his shot allowing David Unsworth to tackle back and deflect his effort narrowly wide.
As two teams struggling at the foot of the table this could be billed as a six-pointer, and it was Moyes' men, and boy, that came away with the victory.
Report From  , For full report and stats, click here.
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