Carew earns Villa point

Everton drew their third successive home game 1-1 as John Carew came off the bench to equalise for Aston Villa at Goodison Park.

Diniyar Bilyaletdinov had opened the scoring for the hosts in first-half stoppage time, but Carew - who had replaced James Milner at half-time - made it 1-1 within two minutes of the restart.

Both teams finished the match with 10 men after Bilyaletdinov and then Carlos Cuellar were given their marching orders late on by referee Lee Probert.

Steve Sidwell wasted the first real opportunity of the game in the fifth minute, misdirecting his header across Tim Howard's goal after Ashley Young's cross had picked him out.

Ayegbeni Yakubu almost broke the deadlock shortly before the half-hour mark with a looping header from Johnny Heitinga's lofted pass, but the striker's momentum put too much on the effort and carried it over the bar.

Villa had their best effort of the half soon after when Cuellar headed the ball across the area and Stephen Warnock met it with a volley, but his execution was not quite perfect and the defender's low drive went inches wide.

A minute of first-half stoppage time had elapsed when Tim Cahill's cross hit Yakubu in the box and fell right in front of the arriving Bilyaletdinov, who made no mistake in slotting it past Brad Friedel.

Carew got the equaliser, making an instant impact two minutes after being brought on for Milner at the interval by firing past Howard when the goalkeeper could only parry a shot by Gabriel Agbonlahor.

Stiliyan Petrov almost put Villa ahead from distance but his effort was deflected.

First Bilyaletdinov was shown a straight red card for a late tackle on Petrov, and only seconds later Cuellar was also dismissed after collecting his second yellow card for clattering into Yakubu.