Jelavic's goal surge last season started against Spurs. I'm hoping for a little bit of history repeating itself starting next Sunday. The one thing that I find worrying about Jelavic is his body language. I think he DESPERATELY needs a goal!

I agree this is a massive game, think in fact that Spurs may finish 3rd and our only hope of top 4 is if Rafa the waiter stays all season and ruins Chelsea. Good news that Bale should be missing for them, hopefully Mirallas back for us. I can see goals in this match and go for 3 - 2 either way.

I agree, I don't see WBA or Swansea maintaining their current form for 38 games, whereas we'll keep consistency and not lose many. Our problem this season in my opinion is that we've sacrificed a lot of clean sheets for more goals, which is clear compared to last December.

Our play against the 'bigger', 'richer' teams always steps up a gear; I expect us to do the same against Spurs. Mirallas really gives us something extra, something that we've missed and with Gibson back that massive hole in CM has now been filled again.

Spurs are beatable but strong in nearly every position. Keeping Defoe at bay and controlling midfield is imperative.

Spurs are certainly beatable... Dempsey has not got going for them as of yet, and his inclusion on the left will certainly narrow their midfield...left back is certainly a problem area as well, although that has partly been because Bale offers too little defensive protection these days (seemingly believing he is Ronaldo, he has given up marking, tacking back, and passing...he is a great attacking player though).

One of their primary issues, is also ours: an inability to keep a clean sheet (I think they've had 2? this season, or thereabouts). Whenever they sit back, they look like letting goals in. They've also been playing a very high line, which we can exploit if Mirallas is back. They've a superb team, but we can certainly get the better of them. The central midfield duel however will be crucial.

I see WBA falling away as well... I think Swansea have signed a couple of incredible talents in Michu and Hernandez... I had no idea how they got them in the summer, and my feelings have just increased since... but they have too many issues, especially defensive issues, and the lack of a decent striker. Arsenal, I believe, will come good. They seem to be completely bereft of confidence atm, but I think they will have a better second half of the season. If are still in the race come January however, it will be very interesting.

We don't have the European commitments of either team, and we hopefully have a psychological advantage given the recent barnstorming January onwards finishes. Arsenal however, have seen promising seasons fall apart several times in the second half of the season, whilst Spurs will have last season's magnificent collapse in mind. We though however have the unenviable task of heading to the Emirates, White Hart Lane, Old Trafford and Anfield in the second half of the season... I think those fixtures make a positive result on Saturday even more important.

I really really want to see Mirallas back for it.

Exactly Sam. Huge game. Cynical me says it's one of 38. But that's shallow analysis. This is simply a massive game and a must win.

I truly believe we are a top 4 side. This is THE game we prove that or discount that hope.

I'm not sure. I still think AVB will mess it up with Spurs. He'll have to strengthen in January and I suppose he's done well missing Assou-Ekotto, Parker and Dembele for long periods.
It will be interesting to see how they do without Bale, assuming he doesn't recover before next weekend.

Isn't it strange that last season loads of people said they would rather see Everton lose as long as we played exciting attacking football. Now loads of people are complaining about our lack of clean sheets.

DM really can't win.

Sam, I hate to come across as negative – I see it more as pragmatic – but I can't see us gatecrashing the top 4 unless Mirallas and 2-3 other key players stay fit.

Our play when we have someone with pace, directness and multiple threat angles is a world apart from the times when we don't. Just look at the difference that Donovan made to us.

Our ability to go toe to toe with the rich teams of the league is admirable, but given that there are far more teams like Readings in the league than Man City, getting a result against Spurs is not going to result in us being contenders.

What we need to do, is turn the games against the mid and lower teams in the league into wins and it seems that those kind of teams often want to win those games more than we do. We need to get into the habit of not taking our foot off the gas when we're leading and not taking off our only striker, giving the opposition free reign to force us to sit on our own 18-yard line.

If we get those things sorted, then I would agree that a lot of the rich clubs look to be struggling and there is certainly 1 or 2 places which are up for grabs this season which aren't normally.

One thing I do know is that drawing every game is verging on relegation form, so let's not get carried away with our league position because it's now very, very tight and we could end up in the bottom half in the next few games if we don't pull our fingers out.

As much as this game is clearly key, as Spurs are our direct competitors for CL, I think the January transfer window will be more telling than anything else. As Wayne rightly highlights, Jelavic is our sole striker, and when he's misfiring, we are not going to put games to bed.

Great analysis and interesting talk. I fully agree that this is the biggest game so far this season. It's good that our first "6 pointer" is to jockey into the CL auto qualifying position.

Oh Hooray, it has just been announced Friend is refereeing it. As memory serves we don't get a lot from him.

So nice to be playing 'six pointers' at this end of the division than t'other.

At home, we should beat them. Spurs are average.

We have the same problem as Spurs. Where is the player who wants to win the League? The Manchester teams don't wonder, despite the fact neither have got the best of us over the last 3-4 years.

Like Spurs, we have a side used to being the best of the rest. Ownership is fine with this. Why would the players think different? "Punch above their weight, Everton do. A tribute to competitive balance, they are". Do we think the players don't know this?

All these games now we've controlled play but came away with a draw. Been shat on by the referee. Business as usual because we're "only Everton".

Where's our player(s) who refuses to lose? I love our boys, we have the talent to match any. But, 3 years in as an Evertonian, I'm feeling déjà vu all over again. Have yet to see our team, stocked with first-rate players, consistently break down and finish teams off.

Man Utd and now Man City expect to win and conduct themselves so. There's something missing with our boys. It sure ain't talent. Or Moyes.

COYB!

James, wait till you've been supporting Everton for 30 years plus; you'll find the same problems have beset the team with regards having a winning mentality on many occasions.

As to why the Manchester clubs expect to win or at least contend for the Title, there are a number of reasons:

Every player has to play consistently well or they're out of the picture, although United have carried a few bad individual performances (mainly due to a succession of injuries) in the last 12 months or so.

Both clubs have at least one main striker that is a genuine goal threat and other players from most departments of the team who will chip in with a few here and there.

It is this goal threat that sets them apart from clubs like ourselves and Spurs. Although Spurs have had more strikers and midfielders capable of scoring than we have had in the last few years (decades?).

Obviously it helps if you can buy the finished article and put them straight into your starting 11.

I wonder sometimes whether the players at the clubs who only hope to achieve CL qualification at best actually put in 100% at all times. Maybe they feel that if they aren't on the same money as some of those title contending benchwarmers, why should they go all out all of the time.

What I mean is if I was a shelf-stacker at Cheapquick and on minimum wage, why would I work harder and longer than my opposite number at PoshShop where they are earning nearly twice as much as me and simultaneously be more likely to win the plaudits and industry awards?

I think we have the players who don't accept defeat, what we haven't seen yet is players who will run that extra yard or make that 50-50 tackle to ensure they end up winning. The games against Arsenal and Liverpool exemplify this point.

Spurs are equally flimsy upfront with Defoe as their only fit striker. Same with Liverpool and Suarez, they're heaidng to West Ham without a senior striker in their squad. We have Jelavic with Mirallas, Naismith and Anichebe to back him up. I know that 2 of them usually play wide but their positions before joining Everton were striking ones.

I'd stick with Jelavic for as long as it takes because I think he's quality, but if he's not getting any luck in certain games or he gets injured or suspended I don't think we'd need to panic as much as Spurs or Liverpool would if their main men went down. Ultimately it may be Arsenal's greater forward options that gives them the advantage over the rest of us chasing fourth.

Steve Pugh:

I'd rather finish bottom half watching what we've seen this season while conceding more goals than watch the defensive, sit back and defend garbage we were subject to the first half of last season.

Yes we are conceding goals. But this season has been exciting and an absolute joy to watch. Last first half of the season garnered no viewing pleasure whatsoever and felt obligatory. A duty to watch instead of really wanting to.

I'll take this style of play with its shortcomings every single time and long may it continue. And I'll never bitch about conceding if we have a go – as we've done all season long thus far.

Spot on Wayne #399.

Mirallas is the key to us breaking the top 4, he is pure class who can unlock defences and I think I'm right in saying he had the most assists in the premiership before getting injured.

We aren't going to do it with Naismith in the first eleven thats for sure.

We missed our chance a bit against lower league oppostion in the past few games and seemed to lack the cutting edge to finish the game off.

Ok we had a few bad decisions by refs, I reckon most of the teams around us have had about the same.

Spurs are beatable but we won't beat them with a misfiring striker. He needs to get better service, it's true, but he also needs to put himself in the right positions more often.

I see him playing too wide or too deep too often. He is an opportunist striker and we seem to be demanding that he be a playmaker as well. Give him one job – scoring – and give him more service via Naismith, Osman, Baines and Pienaar and he will find the net again.

Is he slowly being transformed into the new Andrew Johnson? — works his bollocks off at everything bar putting the ball in the net...

I was going to mention that the other week Phil, there have been a few lads who have come out and said, even though Jelavic wasn't scoring, he was still working hard for the team. Imediately, Beattie and Johnson flashed before my eyes.

He wouldn't be the first striker to fall foul of Moyes's blind spot; how long will it be before Naismith is played in the middle with Jelavic out on the wing?

On a different matter, if you search the internet for Everton Champions 84-85 you will find 3 clips of that marvelous season, mostly filmed from the Goodison Road side of the ground and featuring some stuff I hadn't seen before. They are about 15 mins in length – Great stuff.

My view on Jelavic is that he is not getting on with his team mates anymore and, rather than taking up positions that came naturally to him when he first came, he is now showing uncertainty and anxiety.

The number of poor final balls when he is seen to be getting flack from the other players for not taking up a better position to get on the end of it is increasingly worrying.

If we had someone else to lead the line, I would give him a rest and tell him to calm down.

Let's hope our fortunes come good against Spurs and frustrations go away.

Everton under Moyes is rapidly becoming a striker`s graveyard. I begin to believe that such are the demands placed on any finisher who joins us that he soon becomes an all-action, living-on-eggshells, general dogsbody sort of player who totally forgets how to put the ball in the bloody net!

Because of that, if nothing else, we shall never win ought during his managership.

Striker's Graveyard? My assessment:–

• Beattie was a lazy signing, I hated him. We signed him at the expense of Bent and Ashton who were available for the same combined fee... spit. Blue print of any signing has to be hunger to improve. He looked lost.
• Johnson was only prolific with penalties. Wegner and injuries was the start of the end. Fell apart, sold at a profit with more coming in.
• Yakubu, great start, terrible injury finished him off. Good signing, fate finished him. Gutted.
• Saha was a class act. His injury record finished him off, as his work rate dimmed to nothing. Free transfer and good move on the whole.
• McFadden - no pace. Did well to check out for big gain.
• McBride - loved the big man. Should of been signed.
• Bent, Vaughan, Beckford, Big Vic – not top draw, cash in.

The striker scene in the Premier League as an overall assessment in recent years I think is pretty poor. English strikers woeful. One upfront I think is the downfall. Too many injuries for single players putting too much into games.

Strikers graveyard? Don't confuse having lots of bad strikers on the books with Moyes somehow ruining good ones. He coached the from of his life out of Marcus Bent, a distinctly average player who has done nothing before or since.

The same with Beckford, the lad was terrible yet ended up with 10 goals in his one season, the majority of them being off the bench. He gave Saha a new lease of life before we sold all of our good midfield players and him and Cahill took the fall for Fellaini and Rodwell's sham of a midfield pairing. Campbell did well under him considering his age, as did Big Dunc.

Moyes has only really ever had one striker of real quality before Jelavic and that was Yakubu and he had him firing in 20 goals in a season before injury cruelly ended his Everton career. Moyes has coaxed goals out of both Fellaini and Cahill up front as well. It seems that, if he has a quality player, he'll indulge him as a striker; if not, he makes them work hard in their position as a centre forward.

No one up front under Moyes has gone on from Everton and ended up better than they were when they were here. He's also avoided the garbage that fans once screamed for in every window like Nugent, Earnshaw, Doyle, Boothroyd, Alan Smith. If Moyes ruins Jelavic then perhaps there would be a case for strikers graveyard; 5 goals already in an injury interrupted 'bad' season would suggest that he isn't.

As of yet I haven't seen Moyes take a class striker and ruin him, I've only seen him rehabilitate a series of bad ones and gave most of them the highlights of their careers.

James Martin, a really good analysis.

Talk about re-writing history – the Yak went on to score 17 Premier League goals for a relegated side, FFS! And we let him go for £1.5M.

Moyes didn't like the fact he wouldn't track back and run round like a blue-arsed fly, chasing aimless balls down the channels.

IN the words of Jim Royle – finished? My arse!

Jely is the real deal everything he touched last season went in and the law of averages is just balancing the books this time.

He's a marked man now and I really don't see him as a problem.

It's just not going in for him at the moment but he's earned a shitty spell and I certainly don't believe he's a trouble maker or sulk merchant as some are suggesting.

Kev — the fact that no-one else wanted him when he went to Blackburn with a proven record, and that a 29-year old who had just scored 17 goals with no long demand, does suggest most thought he was and is finished. He had a year left on his contract; would you have renewed his contract at £3m+ a season? The fee is only what someone is prepared to pay, take it or leave it.

From memory, Ian, he never got a look-in after the derby, 2 - 0 to us, I think. But whatever reasons he left the club for, being "finished" is not one of them.

Don't forget, we shipped out Beckford and were only left with an unfit, mis-firing Saha, so that was a monumental fuck-up really. We left ourselves incredibly short of striking options that season.

Now, whether Moyes was forced to cut the wage bill that season may be another matter. I doubt it though, as Yak was never played after that Goodison derby anyway.

Kevin,

Moyes didn't seem bothered he wasn't chasing back when he was banging in 20 a season, did he? Perhaps what did bother him was his Achilles injury that left him impotent for Everton.

Yes, he went and had a good season at Blackburn but there were no signs that he was going to do that at Everton. At the time the fanbase were split on whether to keep him or get rid of him and I can see why Moyes chose to cash in on him. You win some you lose some, the fact he was at Blackburn and has done nothing since suggests that this wasn't a massive loss and is also not enough evidence to suggest that Everton is a striker's graveyard and Moyes ruins strikers by making them work.

Did Mourinho, Ancelotti and Di Matteo ruin Drogba by making him run absolutely everywhere from box to box for them? Has Rooney been ruined by Ferguson playing him all over the shop? What about Messi, the workaholic incarnate, running every channel imaginable?

Not many top teams allow their centre-forwards to just stand around in the box waiting to provide a finish, the best strikers in the world have the best workrate as well. The difference is that they are the world's best strikers whereas Moyes had Bent, Johnson and Beattie. If they looked good at lesser clubs by standing around being indulged then fine but that's why they were at that level.

To get to the top you have to have the work rate as a minimum. These three strikers along with the other ins and outs we've had just weren't good enough to play at the level we were at despite Moyes's attempts to carve a role out for them in the team.

I think we got slashed and burned that summer. Beckford, Yakubu, Turner, Vaughan, Arteta and fees, with little coming in. Dropping him after Liverpool was odd and confused me, I have to admit. Possibly an automatic extension after so many games? Maybe, maybe not. Apparently Villa will not play Bent over fees to Sunderland.... despite being relegation fodder.

You're right James.

How I long for the days when a 60 yard ball would sail over the head of Andy Johnson, out of play. Then Johnson jogs back to the halfway line giving the centre-half the thumbs up for attempting to play him in.

At least Johnson could run though, watching Beattie trying this system was like watching a baby seal being clubbed to death.

Remember he head-butted that Chelsea defender 'cos he couldn't keep up?

Comedy football at it's best!

Sky had a chart on MNF showing the Strikers who had the most touches on average per match, Rat Face was top of the list, I wasn't paying total attention so I think it was the current PL goalscorers. Anyhow, Jelavic had fewer touches than one Fernando Torres, which is pretty awful, to say the least.

I think Jelavic is a top striker but how many chances has he really missed this season, I think there lies the problem, the team hasn't created many real clear-cut opportunities for him to score. The chance against Arsenal last week was made by him for him and unfortunately he fluffed it.

In his first few months of last season, every ball into the box was aimed at Jelavic and, more often than not, he buried it into the net.

I'm hoping when Mirallas is back, more opportunities will be created for him and that he shows how good he really is.

If you have a fully trained Surgeon, you wouldn't want to see them waste their talents portering patients around the hospital, would you?

Joao Moutinho must be the greatest Everton player never to have pulled on the royal blue.

Without some decent backup on the bench, there is no pressure on the likes of Howard and Jelavic to perform. At least give one of the kids some game time... and where is Big Vic?

Tim, my money is on Riquelme. Linked that many times, and seen at Liverpool airport that frequently, he has a scouse accent and a testimonial at the end of the season.

Back on track.

I really fancy us for this one: our 'in your face' type game will rattle them and it's a 3-0 win for me. Get your money on a brace for Jella.

Dave. Ever the optimists, aren't we?

I see that sort of post before every game – we're going to win 3 - 0 etc, and think, "Hang on, let's get real, let's not get too ambitious, especially after a long string of results which were tight in terms of goals..." And then I go to bed before each match and play over in my mind how Baines, Pienaar, Ossie interlink, final cross to Jelli, great goal – after 15 mins. Then similar after 30, then after 44.

Into the 2nd half and I let some others score – a great one from Mirallas from the right, then from Baines free kick, and to finish it 6 - 0 – one from Howard (you've got to mix the long game with the short!). And then I tell myself, "Let's not get too ambitious."

But it's great to dream – and finally that one game comes along that comes a wee bit close to the dream. Spurs?!?? Sweet dreams are made of this...

Brent.
Far from an optimist, just look at my posts on here over the past 10 years or so, I am the eternal glass half empty type after 51 years of support. I just think we will batter them as I don't rate Spurs.
Jella is due a couple I feel.

Dave, I wasn't having a go at you. Just thinking about how my own optimism has to be reigned in at times. Let's batter the spuds!

I know you weren't mate, no worries.

It's not often I get good feelings about this club but I've got one for this game.

NSNO