Source: Liverpool_Echo
Jet-setting keeper Tim Howard delighted Everton FC are off to a flier in Europe
IT is difficult to know what gave Tim Howard the most pleasure on Thursday: four goals, a clean sheet - or the knowledge that he didn't have to head straight for an airport.
Though the life of an international footballer dictates a lot of time will be spent in departure lounges, simply glancing at the schedule Howard has kept during the past two months is enough to induce jetlag.
First it was Seattle, Edmonton and Salt Lake City during Everton's pre-season tour in July, then it was a World Cup qualifier in Mexico with the USA on the Wednesday before the new Premier League campaign kicked-off.
After that, it was on to Olomouc in the Czech Republic for a Europa League play-off, back to England for clash with Wigan Athletic before another transatlantic foray, where he visited Salt Lake City then Trinidad & Tobago.
Clearly, so much flying would exhaust even the most hardened traveller but any weariness Howard may have been feeling was dispelled two days ago when, finally, he kept his first clean sheet of the new term.
Having set a club record for shutouts last season, Howard was undoubtedly impatient that he had got to the middle of September without getting his tally up and running but, happily, that glitch has been ironed out.
And it is no coincidence that it arrived during a game when the two men in front of him showed that they are working in sync - while Joseph Yobo and Sylvain Distin will have savoured their goals against AEK Athens, the 'blank' will have pleased more.
Some supporters will, understandably, have had anxieties following Joleon Lescott's sale to Manchester City but the way Distin has settled in suggests that Everton will be just as strong in the long-term and that is something with which Howard agrees.
'Sylvain and Joe are starting to get a good understanding,' he observed. 'It takes time for that to happen and it's hard to explain why; you've got to get to know things like body language and work on you communication.
'But that will slowly get better and the performance against Athens was a step in the right direction; it was never going to be a problem for Sylvain to adapt to the Premier League when he came in.
