The Belgian striker finished on the counterattack in
the first half before turning creator in the second, after Lille's
earlier draw confirmed the Toffees' Europa League progress
Romelu Lukaku stumbled but nevertheless forced his way through to finish on the counterattack as the Toffees took the lead towards the end of the first half, with the hosts having earlier had a goal chalked off due to an offside flag.
Wolfsburg had another such mishap when Nicklas Bendtner rightly had an effort ruled out and Lukaku then turned creator with a fine through-ball from which Kevin Mirallas advanced and slotted home a second, making up for an appalling Aiden McGeady miss just after the hour.
Wolfsburg, second in the Bundesliga, will join them in going through if they avoid defeat at Lille in the final group match, although their progress might have already been assured had the impressive Ivan Perisic not seen his 22nd-minute effort wrongly disallowed.
Perisic flashed a volley across the face of goal in the second minute and the same player hooked into the side netting when Kevin De Bruyne's clever through-ball caught out Tony Hibbert.
Sylvain Distin should have put Everton in front in the 13th minute when he headed Luke Garbutt's corner into the turf and home goalkeeper Diego Benaglio tipped onto his crossbar.
The hosts sprung up the other end on the counterattack and, from a corner of their own, Tim Howard brilliantly kept out Aaron Hunt's first-time strike.
Perisic and his team-mates were understandably frustrated in the 22nd minute as the Croatia international netted from Bendtner's flick, only to be incorrectly ruled offside.
Everton midfielder James McCarthy suffered a recurrence of his recent injury problems in the 30th minute, hobbling off with an apparent hamstring complaint to be replaced by Leon Osman.
Wolfsburg continued to dominate but, after Phil Jagielka made a superb block to deny De Bruyne, they left themselves exposed from an attacking corner and Everton took advantage clinically. Mirallas touched the ball on to Lukaku, who outmuscled Naldo following a poor first touch to race clear and fire the visitors in front.
Hunt thudded a left-footed drive into Howard's arms eight minutes into the second period as Wolfsburg pressed forward but struggled to regain their earlier rhythm.
The offside flag denied them once again - justifiably this time - in the 55th minute when Bendtner nodded in from a De Bruyne corner before McGeady spurned a glorious chance to double Everton's advantage. Osman released Lukaku down the left channel and his shot was beaten into his path by Benaglio but the Republic of Ireland international overcomplicated his effort on the rebound and hit over.
Perisic carried the charge for Wolfsburg once more, cutting in from the left flank and striking the outside of the near post with Howard beaten.
Howard and Jagielka took turns to thwart Perisic and the former did well to palm away Marcel Schafer's swerving long-ranger.
The United States goalkeeper and his defensive colleagues could breathe easily once Lukaku gave another demonstration of his brute strength to feed Mirallas, who sauntered past Luis Gustavo to finish.
Substitute Maximilian Arnold struck the post in the final minute to sum up Wolfsburg's night before a linesman's flag prevented Everton replacement Ross Barkley from adding undue gloss to the scoreline.
0 comments:
Post a Comment