Sad Everton exposed by slick Stewart

Dumped out of the Worthington Cup in midweek by Bristol Rovers and now comprehensively outplayed by newly promoted Ipswich, Everton are starting to find themselves in a familiar position.

Dumped out of the Worthington Cup in midweek by Bristol Rovers and now comprehensively outplayed by newly promoted Ipswich, Everton are starting to find themselves in a familiar position.

We began the campaign wondering whether Ipswich were good enough to stay up. After this insipid display, that question is now being asked of Everton, and the length of the manager Walter Smith's injury list will not be accepted as an excuse for long.

With Kevin Campbell still short of pace and confidence, Smith could have done without losing his leading scorer, Francis Jeffers, to a ligament injury. But it was at the other end that the alarm bells sounded loudest and they never stopped ringing for the full 90 minutes.

The midfielder Alan Nyarko was never comfortable in the middle of a three-man backline and although it took Smith only 15 minutes to realise reinforcements were needed, bringing David Unsworth back to help out, the tide was already flowing in Ipswich's favour.

Jermaine Wright and Richard Naylor might both have put them ahead before the Merseysider John McGreal gave them the lead they had been threatening. Despite spending 10 years at Tranmere, he had played at neither of the Liverpool grounds before, but that did not prevent him meeting Jim Magilton's 18th-minute free-kick from the right with a firm header that flew inside the far post.

It briefly stung Everton into action but despite Paul Gascoigne playing as though he believed his own recent publicity - which for once has been good - they failed to trouble thereliable Richard Wright.

And two goals from Marcus Stewart in the second period snuffed out even that flicker of ambition. Inevitably, defenders were to blame for both.

Naylor broke down the left and though Nyarko had ample time to pick up Stewart he failed to get goalside of the striker who met the accurate cross with the side of his boot inside the six-yard box to score his third goal of the season.

Disaster then switched its attention to Unsworth, whose sloppy back-pass was seized on by Stewart. He calmly dribbled round the goalkeeper Paul Gerrard and though his first shot was kicked off the line by David Weir, he selected a path through the legs of the arriving defenders to double his tally. And he might have completed his hat-trick had not another shot been scrambled round the post.

All Everton could muster up was a couple of penetrating runs by Gascoigne but that was not enough to quell the rumblings of discontent from the stands.

Ipswich have no player in Gascoigne's firmament, but hard work and the ability to hold their shape more than compensates, and in Stewart they have an excellent finisher. Smith said afterwards: "If you concede goals as we did today, you deserve to lose."

The Ipswich manager, George Burley, said: "We have played the top three teams and their managers will tell you we are a decent little side. We play our football and express ourselves, though the bookies still have us favourites to go down."

Many more performances like this, from Ipswich or Everton, and the bookies may soon be recalculating the odds.