Column

Consistently Consistent

We all have our different views on how well we are performing this season, some of us seem delighted with the progress that we are making and continually argue that real progress is being made. Others like to offer a different point of view and suggest that some of our recent performances have not really been up to scratch and are just waiting for the inevitable implosion that we have witnessed on far too many occasions in our recent past. I must admit, I can?t help it but I tend to sway towards the latter point of view, as I have witnessed far too many false dawns during my 42 years as an Evertonian to be truly convinced that we can once again start to reach a level of consistency that will see us challenging again for honours.

Whatever my own feelings of insecurity may tell me though, there is indisputable evidence that we do seem to be getting it right on the pitch. Let us stop to consider that since 20 October 2007, nobody ? and I will repeat: nobody outside the top three have managed to beat us in the league home or away. That is nearly 4 months of the season.

Ah, I hear the dissenting voices cry, why should we exclude the top 3 from this statistic? Well my reason for excluding them is that if we look at a comparison of any other season, we have not put a run like this together at anytime during the Moyes reign. We have had good runs but we have come nowhere near reaching this level of consistency against the teams who we are currently competing against to grab that vital if not over hyped 4th spot.

We have achieved this despite still having a relatively small squad in comparison to other teams and we have also done this despite having three of our most influential players this season away on international duty. If, and I admit it is a big 'if', the team can maintain this form for the remainder of the season then surely even the most critical amongst us will have to concede that maybe we are finally making the sustained progress that Moyes has been talking about for so long.

I would love to see us playing the type of exciting football that we have produced on a few occasions already this season, but life isn?t like that. I can remember the glorious teams of the 80s playing crap at times; however, that team consistently got results and you always seemed to have the feeling that we were never going to get beat ? it was a bit of a shock when we did.

This team is now playing like it doesn?t believe it is going to get beat when we play anybody else other than the top 3. What we really need to do is to start being more competitive against the top 3 and start turning good performances into good results. We should never have got beaten by Arsenal at Goodison, we out-passed them for much of the game and it was a delight to watch, then suddenly the implosion that I alluded to earlier occurred and we ended up losing. Likewise, we were competitive against Man Utd at Old Trafford for much of the first half, and then we seemed to lose our self-belief and threw it away at the end.

If Moyes can instil into the players that they are good enough to challenge the top three, then, with the consistency we have discovered against those around us, I can see no reason why we should not be up there challenging for the top honours on a regular basis again.

Please let?s not start congratulating ourselves on a job well done if we manage to finish 4th, but let?s look back and ask questions as to why we didn?t finish higher. I don?t want us to be the 4th best team in England; I want us to be the best.

We have to strengthen the squad for the start of next season; the Board MUST come up with the money to do this. We have a glorious opportunity to oust those across the park from the position of superiority they have held over us for far too long. We have to grab this chance and not let it go to waste.

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