Source: SKY_Sports
Saha banishes Euro frustration
Louis Saha was delighted to have reason to celebrate again on Sunday after helping Everton past Blackburn.
The Frenchman was left disappointed last Thursday after being dismissed late on in the Toffees' 4-0 Europa League victory over AEK Athens.
He felt the red card brandished in his direction was overly harsh, and has questioned the decision to have extra officials on display in Europe if they are unable to make big calls correctly.
Saha took his anger out on Rovers at Goodison Park over the weekend as he bagged a brace in a convincing 3-0 success.
He is, however, still smarting about his continental sending off, insisting that his uncharacteristic retaliation was a result of having been kicked by Athens ace Juanfran.
"I class myself as a fair play player," Saha told the Liverpool Echo.
"I don't ever try to hurt anyone when I am on the pitch and my reaction was if I had just put my hand in the fire.
"I pulled it away straight away. That's what I felt I had done. But the referee had seen it different and it was just good that it did not have an effect on the game.
"The thing I felt hard done by was that the extra officials didn't see it. It wasn't fair because there was lots of evidence that I hadn't done anything really wrong.
"You don't want to encourage people to do things like this. But defenders like to do tricky things sometimes - they want to see people react."
Saha was the star of the show on Sunday as he helped Everton clamber out of the Premier League relegation zone, but he is adamant that his fine form in front of goal is down to the combined efforts of the Toffees team.
"I did all right," he said modestly when reflecting on his outing against Rovers.
"I'm just happy to be the person on the end of the movement and if you look at the team, you could see everyone had a spark.
"I was pleased to be part of it. It was a difficult situation for us to be in. Three points from four games is not what you would expect from Everton."
