Osman shows creative side to rescue Everton

Merseyside is an insular place and at both Anfield and Goodison Park they have long extended more love and understanding to their own than they would to anyone born east of Warrington.

It is a rule that has never particularly applied to Leon Osman, who in the easy, lazy way supporters categorise footballers is dismissed as a worthy but limited player; the sort David Moyes needs to discard if Everton are to reach the much-discussed "next level". Osman is supposed to emphasise hard work and commitment rather than curl a left-footed shot from 20-odd yards into the top corner of Thomas Sorensen's net. And had the Stoke keeper not brilliantly palmed away one-handed from Osman in the first half, this unsung midfielder would have had two goals and his side three points.

"Just before he scored, he had a shot from 30 yards and drove it well wide." said Moyes. "He had big bollocks to do the same thing because the crowd here can be unforgiving at times. He has been here since he was a boy, he is part of the brickwork at Everton, but he has worked really hard to get where he is."

Nevertheless, Everton's frustrations could be summed up by the fact that by the end they were fielding three out-and-out strikers, plus two attacking midfielders – which Moyes thought hampered rather than increased their rhythm – and were still failing to find a path through a red-and-white wall.

They may have extended their unbeaten run to six matches in all competitions but this was a side that looked as if it had spent the small hours of Friday morning flying back from Minsk.

Moyes is far too intelligent a man to have uttered the usual phrase: "Frankly, the only way I could see Stoke scoring was through a set piece." That is what Stoke do and how they play. It is like saying: "The only way I could see Arsenal scoring was through a brilliantly-conceived and audaciously-mounted counter-attack."

As it happens, they did open the scoring through a set-piece – a Matthew Etherington corner that Robert Huth muscled his way above Tim Cahill to head home at the Gwladys End.

Leighton Baines, in particular, would confirm that Stoke were far more physically uncompromising than they had been against Manchester United the previous weekend, when they had failed to land a glove, boot or any other part of their anatomy on the champions.

Just as it was last season, when they took until April to win their first match outside the Britannia Stadium, Stoke's fate will be settled at home. However, their progress can be judged from the fact that this was their third successive away draw and a considerable improvement on their last two visits to Merseyside that had seen them lose 4-0 at Anfield and 3-1 at Goodison.

"We got absolutely murdered the last time we were here," their manager, Tony Pulis, commented. "Today we have taken a few punches but we have shown we can get up and carry on."

Here, they stood up to Everton to the extent that Ryan Shawcross grabbed a piece of Marouane Fellaini's shirt and looked like he was offering him outside.

The long ball was deployed to such a degree that the crowd could have watched the sky slowly shift from a pale Arctic blue to something richer and deeper. The tactics may have been uncomfortable but they work and Stoke should no more change their approach than Arsenal.

Everton (4-1-4-1) Howard; Hibbert, Heitinga, Distin, Baines; Rodwell; Osman (Yakubu 76), Cahill, Fellaini, Bilyaletdinov (Jo 76); Saha. Substitutes not used: Nash (gk), Gosling, Neill, Agard, Baxter.

Stoke City (4-4-2) Sorensen; Huth, Shawcross, Faye, Collins; Delap, Diao (Whelan 77), Whitehead, Etherington; Fuller, Beattie. Substitutes not used: Simonsen (gk), Cort, Lawrence, Kitson, Tuncay, Wilkinson.

Booked: Everton: Fellaini Stoke: Fuller, Diao, Shawcross.

Referee: A.Marriner (West Midlands).

Man of the match: Osman

Attendance: 36,753