Everton 0 Blackburn Rovers 1: Glib put-downs such as "busted flush" and "one-season wonder" have served as an increasingly depressing soundtrack to Jonathan Stead's first full Premiership campaign, but yesterday the Blackburn striker was finally able to silence his critics.
Moreover, Stead's first goal for 10 months - an excellent, low drive into the bottom corner dispatched from just inside the area - made an impact at both ends of the table. Quite apart from alleviating his side's relegation worries, it also spiced up the chase for the final Champions League place by restricting fourth-placed Everton's advantage over Liverpool, their closest rivals, to a bridgeable eight points.
Small wonder the latest meeting of the Merseyside rivals, at Anfield in a fortnight, is being anticipated even more eagerly than usual.
After scoring six goals in 13 games to preserve Blackburn's Premiership status, having arrived at Ewood Park from Huddersfield Town last winter, Stead's game regressed and he was only involved here as a substitute, replacing the injured Paul Dickov.
At first he seemed betrayed by a largely diffident, sometimes distinctly wooden, touch, and Everton fans exchanged smug smiles. They were swiftly replaced by frowns when, midway through the second half, Aaron Mokoena intercepted a slapdash clearance from the disappointing Joseph Yobo before clipping the ball into the path of Steven Reid whose ensuing pass picked out Stead.
Taking the ball in his stride, and unfazed by the hovering presence of the desperately back-pedalling Yobo, Stead advanced a couple of yards before unleashing a shot too good for Nigel Martyn.
"It's been too long coming," admitted the 21-year-old, who also scored the winner here last year.
"It's the first time in my career I've not been scoring regularly and I've found it very hard."
Mark Hughes, Blackburn's manager, will presumably feel delighted he rejected Sunderland's attempts to sign Stead this January.
"Jon's lost confidence and his game hasn't been up to the required standard," he explained. "But he's worked very hard every day in training and hopefully he'll be up and running now."
Good as Stead's finish was, this represented an unexpected stumble on Everton's part, and their manager David Moyes admitted: "We didn't play well; we didn't deserve three points."
He and Hughes had evidently done their mutual homework, because they began by fielding identical 4-1-4-1 formations. Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but such boring uniformity did little for the game's early aesthetics.
It took an injury-induced substitution to change things, Everton switching to 4-4-2 when Mikel Arteta was left limping and eventually replaced by Duncan Ferguson following a nasty challenge from Mokoena.
Strangely, Mokoena, the South Africa captain who has swiftly developed a thuggish reputation since arriving in January, merely escaped with a lecture from referee Phil Dowd who surely should have booked him. Although legitimately yellow-carded for lunging, two-footed, at Steven Reid, David Weir subsequently had cause to be aggrieved about a certain lack of consistency.
No stranger to the rough stuff, Ferguson did not take long to put a retaliatory foot in on Mokoena at a moment when Dowd's view was conveniently obscured but the ball long gone.
More constructively, he also created Everton's first clearcut chance of the afternoon. Meeting a long kick from Martyn, he flicked on to leave Marcus Bent with only Brad Friedel to beat but Blackburn's goalkeeper proved equal to the danger, restricting Bent's options by spreading himself before timing his dash off his line impeccably and eventually saving comfortably.
Earlier Martyn had reacted bravely to close down and then deny Dickov in the six-yard box, but that incident concluded with the pair colliding, Dickov sustaining an injury and the stage being duly set for Stead.
A Blackburn goal was in the air - and Stead was, finally, deservedly, in the right place at the right time to provide it.
