*Gregory’s dull day*

Everton are in danger of becoming a soft touch again, and seem to be developing a special penchant for rescuing needy managers from a spot of bother. Last week they outplayed Chelsea, only to concede a goal in injury time to allow Gianluca Vialli to return home with a point he acknowledged he hardly deserved.

Yesterday Everton were inexplicably generous to John Gregory, widely understood to be one bad result from becoming the latest bloodstain on Doug Ellis’s boardroom carpet, when they failed to cash in on Aston Villa’s current disarray.

Actually it was worse than that. Villa were the better side, and it has not been possible to say that too often this season. There was no sign of the bright midfield and sparky attack which had so discomfited Franck Leboeuf and Marcel Desailly, and although Everton possess a quartet of passing specialists of international quality at the heart of their side, they rarely succeeded in finding each other let alone finding the way to goal.

A comical passage of play on the stroke of the interval summed up their underwhelming afternoon. John Collins, momentarily stuck for someone to pass to, beat three players while waiting for Mark Pembridge to arrive on the overlap, but disdained the option of going further on his own in favour of rolling the ball out to the Welshman, who despatched a cross straight into the crowd.

Villa were only marginally better, though at least they retained possession and Dion Dublin and George Boateng occasionally outwitted the home defence. It was dull fare, and though it is always risky trying to judge Gregory’s thoughts from his facial expression, he was possibly wondering why he has to wait until 13 December to start his touchline ban when he could be missing non-events like this.

A point here may be enough to save Gregory’s job this week, but one doubts whether there can be much future for a manager who has begun to pick fights with his players and can soon expect more rumbles of discontent from his substitutes’ bench. Gregory might have paid over the odds for Paul Merson and taken a gamble on Benito Carbone, but both are class acts with more imagination between them than the rest of Everton and Villa combined.

In a game crying out for flair, Gregory waited until the 66th minute to introduce Carbone, and then received jeers of ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’ from his own supporters for taking out Julian Joachim. The Italian looked lively, but by that time Villa were scaling down their ambition to accept the draw.

The visitors had shown a few good ideas in an arid first half, notably when Dublin cleverly set Boateng free down the left, for a cross which Joachim could not reach. Everton came closest to scoring after the interval, when David James twice survived optimistic penalty appeals after collisions with Francis Jeffers and Kevin Campbell. From the second the referee allowed play to continue and Campbell was able to turn a cross back, but a surprised Jeffers could only stab a shot over the bar.

That was it for incident until the closing minutes, when the sight of Don Hutchison shooting narrowly over was too much for Gregory, who took advantage of what touchline freedom he has left to boot the physio’s bag on to the field. Wisely it had been removed by the time a mistake from Richard Dunne let Carbone clean through in the dying seconds, only for a shot poked under Paul Gerard to rebound from a post. Carbone buried his head in shame. Gregory looked disappointed but not surprised.

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*The Guardian*
Monday, 29 November 1999
Match report by Adam Sills

*Gregory’s four home games of fate*

A glance at the fixture list will tell John Gregory that he has four games to save his skin and to keep Aston Villa’s season afloat. Failure in any of the home challenges that Villa face before Christmas is likely to put an end to the manager’s festivities.

Southampton visit Villa Park on Wednesday night in the Worthington Cup, followed on Saturday by Newcastle United. A week later, two days before Gregory begins his 28-day touchline suspension, Villa face the lucky loser in the FA Cup third round before entertaining Sheffield Wednesday.

They are matches that the chairman Doug Ellis and the supporters will expect to win. Whether Gregory can convince his players to have the same belief is more open to question. There is very public disharmony in the squad, with most of the criticism aimed at the manager.

Ugo Ehiogu said on Saturday that Gregory’s assertion that he had ducked out of last week’s match at Coventry was “absolutely scandalous”, and Mark Draper, unable to make the squad, described the manager as “totally inflexible”.

Gregory, though, praised his side’s commitment after their dour goalless draw here. “They have shown they’re willing to compete and roll their sleeves up for one another and for the club. There’s a good dressing room beneath all the rubbish that’s been flying around.”

Yet these are traumatic times and Gregory seems to be losing the backing of the fans. Not for the first time this season they berated the manager with cries of “You don’t know what you’re doing” after he substituted Julian Joachim.

Yet his replacement Benito Carbone almost sealed Villa’s first win in eight games when he hit the post after Richard Dunne’s underhit back-pass.

Everton, without a win in two months, were most dangerous when Dunne and David Unsworth added width to the attack. “We didn’t reach the level we have in previous games,” said Everton’s manager Walter Smith. “I thought it was always going to be a difficult match with the story surrounding Aston Villa.”

It is a tale which could come to an end very soon.