It appeared to my jaundiced eye that the huge difference between this game and the Anfield debacle was that this was a game of football... real football... not the barely legal glorified kick-fest that was the Anfield pitched battle. Closing down, diving in, crazy 50/50 hospital balls — these agreessive ctactics were almost completely absent — as they were to great extent when we played Arsenal.

So, to some degree, I can put it no other way than to say that Chelsea let us play... as did Arsenal. Thing is, that's more like how the Sky 4 usually play each other, as if it was a cunning conspiracy, such that their joint performances were always lauded by the (cough, spit) pundits as a feast of football or such nonsense.

Well, last night, it was like we were admitted to the club, allowed to play football against the Champions Elect, rather than being kicked off the park.

Sadly, we know which seems to be the more effective tactic for the opposition to adopt... FSW he may be, but he still has the hex over our Moyesie.

What MK mentions appears a very British culture to me (being a foreigner). Having attended boarding school in good old England I can tell you the bullies love to cuddle up to each other, share a sexist joke with the matron, and believe the British Empire is as strong as ever. But it’s all fair play and alright to bully cos it’s all in a jolly good fun spirit, chaps.

The more England internationals we have at Everton the harder it will be for the refs and pundits to alienate us. And the yanks probably don’t want to see their prized asset kicked and bullied off the park by their British ’allies’.

To be fair to Moyes who recieved a lot of stick, some of it deserved, we got drawn into a battle against the dogs of war.

I watched the Shite against Spurs in a pub in Lanzarote and they basically won that game on anger, running around pressurising and leaving the foot in on every tackle, they never played any football and Spurs shit themselves.

I said to my Kopite workmates their game plan would be to kick lumps out of Pienaar from the off but never expected them to be so quick as the second minute.He and many others lost their heads and got drawn into their game plan.

It’s nice to know we are a better footballing side than them at the moment but we have to learn how to face teams who want to turn the game into a kick-fest. It would be nice to get a bit more protection from refs as every time Pienaar plays, he gets singled out from the start.

As for them, my mate commented on how they won't keep on winning games on anger and the other night proved that.

Against Liverpool, we bottled it from minute one to ninety. Simple as that really. Too many players didn’t fancy it — especially Pienaar ahead of the World Cup who took that Carragher challenge after thirty seconds and decided he wasn’t turning up.

Against Chelsea, we played further up the pitch with more positivity, we never let ourselves out of the game even at a goal down and we put some brilliant direct attacking play straight at a shaky Chelsea defence.

Is the penny dropping? No, not really. With Everton it has always depended on whether we turn up on the day with the attitude instilled to have a go. Against Sporting, it’s possible we’ll go missing again.

Consistency, basically.

The derby was just so fucking frustrating. Fact is, right now, we are better than them. We are stronger in almost every position and play better football. So to lose THAT game was a huge irritation. In fact to lose both derbies to one of the shitiest Liverpool teams for a while rankles. Should’ve been 6 pts, not zero.

However, we need to look at the bigger picture. We should have won at the Emirates. Even Arsene conceded that 3-1 would have been fairer than 2-2. Add the 3-3 at Stamford Bridge to that, the easy dismantling of Abu Dhabi City (should have been 4 or 5), and then Wed’s brilliant recovery and outplaying of Premier League and Champion’s League favourites, and it gives some perspective as to where we should see ourselves.

Wednesday happened without Pienaar and Fellaini. Osman was fabulous. Donovan was fabulous. Baines is becoming more & more sure and offensive. I thought Heitinga was a colossus and he, surely, has to stay exactly where he is from now on. He brings a strength, composure, reading and, praise the lord, a creative route out of defense. Jags has few peers when it comes to reading an attack and making the interception, but in all honesty Heitinga’s offensive play & passing is in a different league to Jags.

We’ve almost got the full squad now. As I predicted, Villa and Spurs are wobbling. Liverpool... well that just annoys me because we should be almost level with them now. City have the biggest buffer, but are also wobbling and I sense that all that change is undermining performances.

We now have a midfield that includes Arteta, Pienaar, Fellaini, Rodwell, Donovan, Osman. I’m not sure I’d swap it for anyone else’s. Up front if Saha is in the mood then, truly, who is better? Yak needs to do something fairly soon if he’s to get back. But we also have strength in depth up front.

We can now afford to just go for it in every game. 13 games left and it’s at least possible, if not probable, to win 10 of them. We have to visit Spurs and Villa (I’d back us in both games), Man U at home (why not?) and then the rest are middle/lower teams.

This has been one of the more fascinating seasons in recent times. And I hope it isn’t lost on those of you who deride Kenwright and hanker after a bilionaire that the new financial reality has helped to make football more competitive. To me it is unarguable that it makes for a better competition.

I have a sense that there are a few more twists and turns left yet. I’m in the mood for a barnstorming last quarter of the league season and some great European nights as we glide towards the Hamburg Arena in May. Possibly, I suspect, against Benfica or Shakhtar.

Winning mentality.

Footballing ability alone doesn’t give you the right to win a game of football. The likes of Neville, Cahill, Jags, Howard and now Heitinga maybe aren’t our most talented footballers, but they have the bollocks to stand up to the very best of teams. This allows the more gifted players (who can often go missing in the big games) to have confidence to create chances, and play some good football too.

I can feel the confidence growing (albeit very gradually), not just withing the 11 men on the field, but in every Evertonian, and soon enough I feel we’ll have a squad worthy of winning some silverware.

Saddest thing, for me, is realising that if we hadn’t thrown the derbies it’d be Lpool on 38 points and us on 41.

Big if, but still...

Although The FSW outdid Moyes as usual, did it not strike as incredily hypercritical of him. He cries every team we dare set out to shackle his team yet all of a sudden it is acceptable when they do it. I’m sorry but you can’t have it both ways. I wouldn’t mind so much if he wasn’t such a hypocrit.

Let’s not even think about the Shite’s points. We will catch them, it’s just a matter of time.

Re. Europe, I went to BetFred last night and asked for odds on Everton to win Europa League and knocking out the Shite on route. 33/1. £10 on that — paying for a week on the Costa Blanca in July!

We beat Chelsea by playing our usual tactics — a long punt up forward and this time John Terry, who must have had his mind on Vanessa, should have headed that ball away with ease... but got it all wrong and there was Saha to pounce — one touch and bang into the net.

Alan Kirwin, I could not agree more, Moyes is still making negative mistakes such as going to Old Trafford with the same old cowardly tactics, but I suppose he would not do that if we had a full strength team.

It is annoying that having been the best of the rest for years, the first time the big guns show a season of weakness, we are crippled by injuries to add to our annual pre-season shambles — that means we are playing catch up again.

We are showing progress against these teams and if we can keep this squad fit and together, plus have a good organised pre-season, who knows what we could do next season? But, being Everton, it just does not work like that.

I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist or anything, but I really do think that Fergie has a hold over Moyes. I don’t know whether it’s in exchange for giving us Saha and Phil on the cheap or whatever — but I just feel that we try so hard against whoever the title rivals are, but then conveniently fall apart (or, in Phil’s case, score wacky own goals) against Man U.

I know it sounds really pessimistic, but I bet we don’t play with as much heart and effort next Sunday and they roll us over, and then we’ll get Owen in the summer in exchange!

Yours sincerely,
A man who believes Prince Phillip did it.

On another plus side, after Utd and Spurs we will have played those teams plus the shite Arsenal and Chelsea twice so have a pretty decent run in to say he least.

Paul G - spot on. More than any other EPL season I can remember, THIS has shown to be the one where almost anything is possible.

I accept the difficulties we had with injuries, but even that doesn’t mitigate Moyess’ culpability in our regular shitty start to a season. I don’t understand why only our acknowledged best players are the ones that play joined up football. It should be a club philosophy to keep the fucking ball and learn pass and move. If Nottm Forest can do it in the Championship (and believe me, they can do it superbly) then we can.

The lost 2 points against Arsenal hurts a little, and the lost 6 points against LFC hurts a lot. With even half of those points we’d be on the tails of the 4th place aspirationists. I wonder how it would have been had we had our full squad from the beginning. There’s almost something in our DNA under Moyes that results in under-preparation and crap starts. Maybe playing top class teams might help, instead of fucking Blackpool and Bury.

No telling where this season is going to go, but isn’t that part of its beauty? If we beat ManU then we will surely have the steel to go for it. Man for man, we are better than Villa and Spurs, and City, and Liverpool. If we win (and we can) at Villa & Spurs then I think it becomes a case of will Liverpool’s legendary good luck last, and do City have enough games left to get the points on the board.

The aberration of Anfield aside, we seem to be both entering form at just the right time,and we have an almost full squad to pick from.

We can only look forward. I, for one, am excited by what might be.

Alan, I feel your excitement... but have felt it so many times in the last few years.... we are sooo close to pulling it together I feel for a sustained season... we have screwed ourselves in the first half for the last 2 years....this season 10 points in 12 games from October including the likes of Bolton, Wolves, Hull and West Ham.... in 2008 we had 44 points at this stage... which I believe if we were closer to that amount 4th would be ours...

With regard to Jags and Heitinga.. you are right.. Jags might learn a lot from Johnny in terms of distribution. But even so the 2 of them together is a great prospect....

I predicted on these pages a "See the stars" like finish from Moyes boys a few weeks ago, the confidence was returning, as were our players.

We have to learn overcome the type of spoiling tactics the shite employed, fuck knows we’ve used them oursleves often enough in the past. Man U? Bring it on!

Paddy Francis, Your post prompted me to double Arsenal up with our boys on Wednesday, great shout. What price do you think you’d get for Pompey going out of business and handing the shite 4th place?

Dave, No worries — I live to gamble.

Man City are in a good spot for 4th I’m afraid. Let’s be realistic, we’re 4 wins behind City in real terms so it’s a big ask to pull that round.

Unfortunately, if I was going to bet (which I won’t — or at least I won’t admit it) I’d be going for a Manchester double next weekend.

Kunal Desai — Are you for real, did you actually watch the Chelsea game? WE were the team in blue you know!

How anybody can watch that game and call us a hoofball team is ridiculous. Yes, one of our goals came that way, but we bossed that game from just after Chelsea scored until we were 2-1 up, there was only 1 team playing football and it was us.

The problem for us is we need the space to do it, against Liverpool last week, they didn’t come out and play so we had to break them down, which is extremely difficult — see Villa against Utd with 10 men.

We have the players to win open games, but when a team plays with 10 (or 11 on occasions) men behind the ball, it's difficult to break down — we should know... we finished 4th playing like it one season!

For us against Liverpool, Birmingham and some others, the roles have been reversed. Now they play us with more caution and defend deeper, giving us no room to play in.

Got do disagree with Paddy and his Man United conspiracy theory. It was only last season's home game when Neville flattened Ronaldo with a crunching tackle which lead to half of their team trying to have a go at him. I don't remember us doing them any favours that day.

Yes we were rubbish at Old Trafford this season but in our previous two matches there, we battled as well as any team and only lost to two soft penalties. I haven't given up on 4th though. Our last 5 home games are as follows: Hull, Bolton, West Ham, Fulham, Portsmouth.

Oh and PN scored one of the penalties in the semi to send Man U out.

Kunal Desai, so the long clearance launched by Cech, headed on by Drogba for Malouda was a precision pass, but Distin just punted it?

You should get a job in the media, you really should.

Paddy, how do you work that out? We’re 9 points behind, which is 3 wins. If you’re referring to games in hand, they’ve got Stoke away on Weds (couldn’t beat them at home in the cup) and us. I view it as 2 wins cos we’ve nothing to fear when we go their place.