Football / Race for the Championship: Newell and Wilcox boost Blackburn

Everton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0

Blackburn Rovers. . . . . . . . . . . . .3

BLACKBURN Rovers, shrugging off any suggestion of vertigo, continue to play on the tightening nerves of Manchester United. In theory, tension could have halted them in their tracks yesterday but they ruthlessly cut down Everton as if they had ice in their veins.

It was not a swaggering Blackburn performance, but you could not fault it for its efficiency. Three good goals from their only real chances of the day keep them on the heels of the Premiership leaders and they appear to be handling the prospect of going for the championship with more aplomb than is evident at Old Trafford.

Mike Newell, playing against the club who sold him two and a half years ago, scored twice while Jason Wilcox claimed the other. Everton, you suspect, could not have found the net if they had been playing Blackburn's third team. Their manager, Mike Walker, said he was pleased with the performance but he was in a minority of one. Yesterday, they were dreadful. 'I could not ask for anything more from my players,' Walker said to general scepticism, 'except goals.'

Just two points above the relegation places, they are in trouble. You need luck to win titles, and Blackburn will consider themselves fortuitous to have met Everton in what was a potentially dangerous fixture. The home side lurched from error to error like drunks, nullifying the prospect that Blackburn might have suffered an adverse physical and mental reaction to their win over Manchester United on Saturday.

The defeat means Everton have taken just one point out of their last 18 and have shipped eight goals in their last two matches. Their players went from extremes of either leaving the ball to each other or getting in each others' way. They lack touch, lack confidence and carry no threat up front. Anders Limpar's cross after 10 minutes was almost turned in by Graham Stuart and Tony Cottee but, that apart, they created virtually nothing despite long periods of possession.

'I thought they started better than us,' Kenny Dalglish, the Blackburn manager, said over- generously, 'but we got better the longer the game went on, and we won it fairly comfortably.' It's been a good Easter for you, someone suggested. 'Aye. And I got a nice egg, too.'

For a while Blackburn, too, were bobbing along the bottom of their form, but you do not have to play particularly well to defeat Everton at the moment, and once they scored they never looked uncomfortable again.

The goal came after 27 minutes when Jason Wilcox, probably their best player, crossed from the left and the ball was volleyed at the far post by Stuart Ripley, who might have been shooting but contrived instead to pass to Newell. He was eight yards out but turned the ball past Neville Southall with a confidence that belied his three- month absence with a knee injury that ended only when Kevin Gallacher broke his leg.

He got another nine minutes from time, turning on the edge of the area from Wilcox's pass and then firing in with his left foot. Southall, who must feel like a a target in a rifle range at the moment, did not have a ghost of a chance of stopping it.

He did not have much prospect of saving Wilcox's 63rd- minute goal either, the left winger beating him from 30 yards with his left foot. 'He was against one of the best goalkeepers in the country and he couldn't get near it,' Newell said. 'It was a superb strike.'

It was also a good piece of refereeing by Mr Morton, who allowed play to continue when Shearer was scythed down by David Unsworth. He duly booked the Everton full-back as the Blackburn players celebrated. 'I hardly noticed him,' Dalglish said, 'which is usually a sign that a referee is having a good game.' The Blackburn manager praising officials - it must have been a good Easter.

Everton (4-4-2): Southall; Snodin, Jackson, Watson, Unsworth; Ebbrell, Stuart, Horne, Limpar; Cottee, Angell (Barlow, 78). Substitutes not used: Parkinson, Kearton (gk).

Blackburn Rovers (4-4-2): Flowers; Berg, Hendry, May, Le Saux; Ripley (Wright, 29), Sherwood, Batty, Wilcox; Shearer, Newell. Substitutes not used: Warhurst, Mimms (gk).

Referee: K Morton (Bury St Edmunds).

----------------------------------------------------------------- THE TITLE RUN-IN ----------------------------------------------------------------- MANCHESTER UNITED: 13 April Leeds United (a); 16 April Wimbledon (a); 25 April Manchester City (h); 1 May Ipswich Town (a); 4 May Southampton (h); 7 May Coventry City (h). BLACKBURN ROVERS: 11 April Aston Villa (h); 16 April Southampton (a); 24 April Queen's Park Rangers (h); 27 April West Ham United (a); 2 May Coventry City (a); 7 May Ipswich Town (h). -----------------------------------------------------------------