We can all agree that at the moment we are playing like crap.

The feeling amongst the fans is low and most likely within the squad. We can't afford to think we are a big club that will come good.

If we continue along this path we will face the drop. It's not easy but at the end of the day we the fans are Everton. We are still there long after the managers and players have moved on.

It's at a club's lowest point that its fans are the most important.

I share the same thoughts Brian, it's like we can almost predict what will happen and it ruins my weekends far too often. Just to make matters worse I've sat through 90 minutes on tele watching Barcelona rip Real Madrid to pieces. Don't think I've see a team play football 'perfectly'. If only Everton could play a fraction of what they do, it would do for me.

It was really quiet for long periods of time during the game on Saturday.

A 1-4 loss to The Baggies! Is that what it has come to? Too many players not on form and/or not pulling their fingers out of their arses - so fucking frustrating!!!

Brian, spot on ? good post.

I remember a few weeks a go I could not really be arsed with the Stoke game and I was wondering what?s wrong with me.

The games at home to Newcastle and West Brom after 10 mins in each game I said I can't see us scoring unless it?s from a set piece. It's just so utter shite and predictable garbage.

I said to my dad at the start of the season we would finish above the red shite and me dad told me we wouldn?t because, no matter what, Liverpool can do one thing we can?t ? that?s retain possession. He told me no team can be successful long term if it can?t keep the ball and pass and move comfortably.

I was sat in the Park End on Saturday as Albion where passing the ball around us with ease when we were down to 10 men thinking, if this was the other way, we would struggle to keep the ball as it would be like a hot potato and panic stations in our defence.

And you know what, the worst thing is, I ain't got a clue what the answer is ? just like our manager but then I'm not on £65k a week.

The Premier League is just going stale in general.

Cheers lad,

Looking forward to my first visit of the season.

I've got that shite song in my head now, too. *gone, gone, gone, whoooaa*

Russell "If we carry on like this we will face the drop" (? paraphrasing a bit there!)... We are facing the drop! We are facing it now! I think that probably, David Moyes will try to revert to becoming a hard to score against team again and it may well work. If so, then we might make it to mid-table and stay around there.

I came out of that match on Saturday thinking "We could go down." I read the Daily Post this morning and it was trying to tell me that that we should have won!! For crying out loud, the better football was played by West Brom!!! I can't say they played us off the park but, by all the gods, if I was a neutral, I would be thinking that the team in stripes looked comfortable on the ball, played some nice football, and, generally speaking were more skilfull and more cohesive.

It was culminated by their sub giving poor Tony Hibbert the runaround. I'm not knocking him, or any other of the players, to me there is a malaise running through the team, and that must come from the club itself, not from them.

I don't see us going anywhere, we might escape relegation, or we might nearly make it into the top six, but so what!!! I've been an Evertonian for god knows how long. I saw a brilliant team assembled by Johnny Carey and it was a matter of hoping the week would rush by, so that I could go to the match on a Saturday and watch the nearest thing that I could imagine to poetry in motion. It was an absolute joy to watch great footballers revelling in their love of the game and ripping teams asunder with their artistry.

I thank the footballing gods that I had the chance to see great, great players like Collins, Young, Vernon, Ring, Lill, Gabriel, Labone, Harris, Parker and West. Personally, I think we owe a great debt to Johnny Carey, for what was, to me, the best football team that Everton has produced... ruined by Catterick in my humble opinion.

We then spent fifteen years in the wilderness until we saw another superb team in the mid-eighties. We might want to blame what happened at Heysel for our demise but I don't. I blame a board at EFC who fallowed the best team in England, along with their manager, to break up. We had the best team in England and we had the pick of players to build on. What did we do... we sold the bloody best of them.

I don't even want to remember the rest of our history after this because it is like a Greek Tragedy. However, we had the Cup Final in 95 and that was an all to rare glimmer of light, amidst another 15 years of unremitting gloom.

We come to the Moyes years and, without a doubt, he saved us from going down. Well, the players also deserve great credit for saving this club from the ignominy of relegation.

Bloody Hell, I haven't half gone on, I'm sorry for that. But this club now is, in my opinion, at a crossroads. David Moyes is doing his best for what he is getting paid to do. That is ... Manage Everton. I have no doubt that he wants to see us break into the top 4 on a consistent basis and that he wants success from our club.

I'd love to see him do it, for he is an honourable man... but I can't see it. He is not a manager who knows how to create an exiting team. But he will keep trying to get us into the group of five or six teams who want to get into the top six.

The real problem in our club lies in the Boardroom. We have a man as Chairman who makes great play of the fact that he is an Evertonian. Somehow, we are all supposed to think "Oh what a wonderful thing... we have a True Blue as Chairman" Well... I think this man has just about presided over our downfall.
I'm sure he does want to see the club succeed but I also feel that he is too keen to remain the owner, no matter what. We saw the King's Dock dream turn into dust and ashes at the end. We saw the nightmare scenario of moving out of our city to a retail park in the middle of nowhere being portrayed as the "Chance of a lifetime...a free stadium!" He has on the Board of Everton FC, Phillip Green, (who is reputedly a Billionaire.. and also is a Spurs fan, I understand) and some bloke who has sold up his holdings in "Planet Hollywood" to join the board of our club...

Sorry, I've rambled, but the way I see it, I come away from that match thinking "is Tai Chi hard to do? Maybe I could take up painting or something!" Whatever I do let, it save me from witnessing the downfall of the club I've loved since I was a kid.

We really need to let the board know they are a fucking disgrace to all the people who brought our club into being... and to the many, many thousands who have, and still do, look at "being an Evertonian" as something that we would be proud of, no matter what.

What I want to see, is not so much winning cups (though I wouldn't say no!) ? it is to be proud of the phrase that was given to us at our birth, and should be a mantra that we take as read. All of us believe in it, well at least all of the fans do. I'd like to see it mean something to this fecking useless board. It doesn't just mean shoving a up a few posters outside the ground. It is our watchword and what we as a club, should live by: "Nil Satis Nisi Optimum"

Let us have a board who will get us fans to believe they say that this is what they mean. This board don't give this message out to me.

Jim, you're right we are facing the drop at this stage. I?m still clinging to the hope that we will improve to finish above the relegation scrap pile.

Evertonians are hurting at the moment... Nil Satis Nisi Optimum hasn?t meant anything within the club for many years.

Brian, I totally agree. It was absolutely dire on Saturday. God knows where we go from here. I'll come to the next match, not with any sense of joyous anticipation; it will be out of loyalty, not with any sense that I will be seeing a feast of football. I'll just be hoping we win one or two games to get us out of the relegation frame.

Russell. You were right about saying that when a club is at its lowest, that the fans are most important. I think though, that we have to stand up as fans and say, "This just isn't good enough!" Support the team by all means means... never boo them. But those sitting comfortably in their shareholder free comfort zone... well I think we should be calling for the bastards' heads!

The most frustrating thing is not knowing what, if any, action is being taken at Finch Farm that will improve things. I assume something is being done but come the game and we see the same old mistakes being made. Is it the coaching? Is it the players? What in hell's name is going on back at the Farm???

Yes, it's quite worrying, the goals kept coming in from WBA and I couldn't be arsed. I don't think the players enjoy playing under Moyes either.

This weekend was supposely the first time ever in Prem history that every team scored. The game has become more attacking for some reason or another so Moyes needs to keep with the program. It's not working at all.

The goals did keep coming ? from West Brom cos, at 2-1 up and against 10 men, the crowd wound up by the ref etc etc Di Matteo brought on a forward who crucified us. In the same position, what would we have done? I wonder...

Dick Fearon (#10) asks what an earth is gong on at Finch Farm?

Well I'm guessing it'll be a "Back to Basics" strategy of: defend from the front, track back, keep your shape, defend as a unit etc.

Nothing new, just working harder & harder at the same old "Safety first /Plan A" in an attempt to eliminate mistakes.

You have to conclude that something is wrong with the organisation because, with just about the same squad, we finished last season flying; games were won, goals were scored and with some style.

Good players ? not world beaters mind you ? don't suddenly become bad ones surely? So something must be badly awry at the top. BK is almost certainly the problem because he will not relinquish control ? as has been said before ? and that's why nobody wants to put their millions into the club.

I empathise with Jim at #7. I remember Johny Carey's team ? I also remember that John Moores sacked him in the taxi ? and it's a crying shame that so much mismanagement has been allowed to drag our great club down.

We should also bear in mind that the Premier League this season appears to have altered a great deal. Standards have definitely been raised and the unbeatable clubs are actually losing. Consistency has gone out of the window and we are a part of that process unfortunately. I still think that we have to get behind the team no matter how disillusioned we are and I appreciate that is difficult for fans who have never seen a great Everton team and have been forcefed the travesty that passes for football.

Take heart, lads ? it can't go on forever; we'll turn the corner... hopefully starting at Stamford Bridge followed by a thumping win against Wigan. Ever the optimist!

I can't agree with Tom (#5) about the league being stale... in fact, I think it's the opposite.

This season we are seeing a completely different approach by the "weaker teams" towards the usual top four and, for my money, it's a lot more entertaining. Seeing teams like Blackpool, Birmingham, West Brom, Bolton, Stoke, and the likes having a real go and throwing caution to the wind is quite refreshing to me. They attack with speed creating lots of chances and score goals.

No other team approaches the opposing 18-yard box like us: slow sideways passes up to the box then, instead of looking for a shot, it's got to go out to Baines on the left for the cross in to Cahill... sussed. Then the inevitable counter-attack, resulting in us backing off allowing the long shot that Howard just doesn't do. 0-1 down and then our usual scrap for a draw at home.

The opposition could just sit in their armchairs on the edge of their box and say, "Hey up, lads ? they're here" take it off us, fuck off up our end and score. Every manager in the league knows what we are going to do and nothing ever changes.

It's us that's stale ? not the league.