Well said, Rick, I too think our pre-seasons are bordering on the farcical. We are not mentally or technically prepared for the start and I hope that we don't see a re-run of last year’s Uefa Cup Preliminary Round debacle.

Agreed, considering Moyes pays such attention to detail, it’s surprising that he hasn’t noticed how slow out of the blocks we are each season. Compare our pre-season with Arsenal’s and you can see why they’re sharper than us - even without considering the huge gulf in class.

I must also point out that the last time we suffered a heavy defeat to Arsenal on the opening day at Goodison we lost 4-1. Then went on to finish 4th.

Give credit to Arsenal as they were superb. They played through the gaps we leave and had pace to punish us.

2 positives for me hopefully. That is the last of Hibbert and Osman. Between both of them, no pace, no basic football brain. A simple pass to a team mate is beyond Hibbert. I know it’s easy to blame them but you can’t doubt the evidence your own eyes see.

It’s only one game albeit a bad one, but I won’t panic till nearer Xmas. We are never going to play like Arsenal but you can still dream we can.

Have to say this evening’s game was perhaps the most traumatic experience I’ve ever had watching the club. Sometimes you watch a game and you think it was never a 6 goal score line and in this case it wasn’t. It was possibly a nine goal annihilation.

I watched the game in a North London pub packed with gooners and the most humiliating experience of all was when we scored they actually cheered it more loudly than any of their own scores. The truth is I rather thought they might and was hoping we wouldn’t score.

I’ve just been reading Neville’s comments on the OS I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It seems we don’t know how to defend. We’ll Phil let me tell you and this may come as a surprise but since we lost Carsley we can’t seem to win a tackle in the middle of the park either. How many times did Neville pass the ball backwards? I lost count, only for it to be hoofed back up the park.

I thought I’d never have to witness the Hibbert - Osman combination ever again following the FA Cup Final debacle but I was wrong. Please no more excuses these two aren’t even squad material an absolute disgrace the pair of them. I’d now like to add Neville to that, he should never play in the middle again. He can’t pass, can’t tackle, he just seems to confuse everyone around him and serves no meaningful purpose.

We desperately need a holding midfielder. What really galled me was Neville’s attitude you’d expect a team captain to be balling the players out but then he could hardly do that as he was bloody awful himself.

To all those that say ...well we lost 1-4 and finished 4th.

Does that mean that if we lose a 2nd game, a la 1984, we will win the Title?

That sort of thinking is why casinos keep making a profit... The dice/cards/football fixtures have no memory, heads or odds or black or 2004 doesn’t mean next time it will be tails or evens or red or 2009.

The writing that was on the wall, and has been for years, was covered over along with the cracks by the paper that was SAF taking a chance with his B-team in the semi-final.

Too many seem to have the memory/attention span of Bob the Goldfish.

Cue Topol: Lord, who made the Lion and the Lamb, would it spoil some VAST eternal plan, if Bill was a wealthy man?

Was it really deja vous or was it deja vu? Being in rather a state of shock after the game it set me thinking. Who was the vous? Was it any particular individual such as Lescott or Osman or Hibbert or perhaps the manager. Or was it the collective vous?

Perhaps all of us in some way are responsible for this catastrophe, ce sacre foutoire — this fucking shambles. There seemed to be a sentiment of uncertainty. Nobody was sure whether to cheer or jeer, laugh or cry, go or stay. So, Fabregas said to himself, fuck it, I think I’ll take a stroll through the park and deposit the ball in the net on my way out.

The alternative is, of course, deja vu, with the vu being the passe compose form of voir the French verb to see. Literally "already seen". This phrase summons up Nietzsche’s idea of eternal return. He wrote: "Must not whatever can walk have walked on this lane before? Must not whatever can happen have happened, have been done, have passed by before? And if everything has been there before — what do you think, dwarf, of this moment?"

Such a notion has been challenged many times, most notably, I fancy, by Milos Kundera in his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I have to say I side with Kundera. Surely, nothing ever really repeats itself totally.

You can be beaten 4-1 twice but the two matches will have been played in different ways. So I suppose what I am trying to say is, fuck it, it was a one-off. Everton will recover and do quite well. This game will fade into memory and there will be others to savour against lesser opposition. But we have to be realistic. The team we were hoping to overtake this season just beat us 6-1. And that’s a bit heavy.

Ooops... sorry for my French faux pas. I was preoccupied trying to find the right accented version of "deja", which annoyingly does not pop up as an alternate in the spell-checker.

Ok, let's get it out the way early... WE WERE PANTS!!!

Individually and collectively it stunk with only Pienaar able to claim any credits. On the other hand, Arsenal were good with quick pass-and-move all over the park and not hoofing it all day. It's easy to slag Hibbert or Osman who are both Championship players and say Lescott shouldn't play but who do we have in reserve? Shane Duffy??? With all due respect, I wouldnt know if I fell over him yet he was on the bench today!!

Others were just as bad. Jo is as bad as any striker we've had in 20 years and there are some puddings in that list!! Fellaini is slower than my mother and she's 77!! He isn't a Premier League player let alone €15 million.

So how do we change it??? Without influx of cash, we don't. Simples. We just try to get as many points as we can off those around us to ensure safety and don't waste our time dreaming of Champions League as we are light years away from there. Sell Lescott as it's the only way we can strengthen the SIDE not just the squad and use the money to get some quality because, without Arteta, we have none. Rodwell looks like he could do it but are we going to rely on an 18-year-old kid to lead us through a long hard season?

It's time to get real. Forget about whether we can push for 4th spot or not as tonight gave us that answer loud and clear. Without investment, last season will be as good as it gets. And all the KEIOC romantics need to wake up as, without Kirkby, there'll be no investment.

Dave Charles, anyone who thinks we have seen the last of Osman and Hibbert is demonstrating an appalling ignorance of David Moyes and his wily ways. These are two of his most trusted stalwarts. Willing workers whose names are always first on the teamsheet.

I was actually quite surprised when he chose to take them off. Of course by them it was far too late to change the game. But rest assured: we shall be seeing plenty more of them before this season is over. I don’t usually make predictions but I feel very confident about that.

Micheal Kenrick.

Well I did say ’hopefully’, and no doubt we will still be seeing them two players on the pitch. A good game against say Wolves, and we will see even more of them. Maybe the man who picks them might need to answer questions in what he really sees in them.

Feel like shit... deja vu?

Whoever thinks the memory of this game will fade over time is wrong. That’s it, it’s there, etched in my brain for me to recount to all the next Clarke generations.

"Do you remember when we lost 6-1 at home to Arsenal? Oh yeah, opening day of the season wasn’t it? Yeah, I remember it well because after going to Wembley in the cup final the season before, I was expecting Everton to finally push on and challenge those CL places. Fuck me, I couldn’t have been more wrong. We signed no-one that summer and ended up in a relegation battle."