What about the two goals chalked off against Newcastle at Goodison Park one well onside and the other half a yard across the line.Then again Ken Dodd scored and injury time winner at Goodison for the Shite that should of counted.
I suppose we could go on forever because fans of other teams will have their own hard luck stories to tell.We got 3 points at Swansea early in the season the opener coming from a goal helped in by a Fellaini elbow..So forth and so on..As I said every fan at every club can say the same thing.

It's these little reminders that I quit when people say Moyes took us as far as we could go.

It's a galling fact that, points-wise, we've probably under-achieved this season. So many missed opportunities.

Things don't even themselves out, where did this stupid cliche come from? It goes against any logical thinking. The late goals we conceded were our own fault, but refereeing decisions which haven't evened themselves out have cost us big time

For us, at least, this pretty much all evens out.

Not sure if it's changed in the last two or three weeks, but this season we have;

a) Gained 21 points from losing positions
b) Lost 21 points from winning positions

Arguably we may as well have just stopped playing when the first goal went in in every game, and we'd have the same number of points...

So near, yet so far. November is the month that cost us. Fulham, Reading and Norwich. Seven points thrown away from winning positions. You only need to add in Norwich away and that's ten points chucked away at bottom eight team. We could have been challenging for second never mind fourth.

I was at the home game against Norwich, the game was crying out for a substitution around the hour mark as Norwich had us penned in. That was the time to bring on Barkley and maybe Vellios to alleviate some of the pressure but, no, Moyes tried to hold on to that 1 goal lead and you just knew they were going to equalise.

We don't have enough players for a European challenge so it would have been short lived had we made it. We'd need at least 3 more quality players. And thats without any leaving.

Been saying it for a while now.
If the manager had been a little more brave at the right times we would be on our way to European games next season.

You can't go picking and choosing late goals conceded without asking the same of Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea.

Not sure about Chelsea, but Spurs couldn't stop shipping them in at the start of the season and Arsenal had some horror shows too.

Both are what you can consider brave.

When it comes down to it, we didn't have a Bale, or a striker, or a bench - but most pitifully of all, either no transfer kitty in January - or the balls to sign a player with a slight teeny weeny problem with his knee who has gone on to play all subsequent games this season.

I'm thinking the former.

In the end we've been shafted by wrongly disallowed goals and penalties not given.

In the end though, with only 12-13 players of genuine first team quality, it was never going to happen against clubs who loan out players for nothing that would get into our matchday 18.

James Stewart, it depends on whether we are talking CL or Europa cup. If we had made CL we could of afforded to bring some extra quality into the squad because of the financial rewards it brings.The Europa cup doesn't offer much in the way of money and it may of been too much of a strain on our lack of numbers

Reckon it does balance out it's just frustrating the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea have been poor with Spurs always likely to fuck up.

Genuine opportunities frittered away in both the league and cups this season hopefully the new man can sort it out.

I felt as far back as the Newcastle game at home that we were good enough for a top 4 push, but losing points to a late goal and bad decision made me think we'd blow the fine line that makes a difference.

To coin the old cliche the table doesn't lie, we didn't make the top 4 because we didn't have enough quality, and/or a gamechanger like Bale

Barry #156
Arsenal, Spurs & Chelsea despite being "poor£ will finish up with more points this season than last and there's something called the Premier League Table which indicates that we've outperformed Liverpool. But I suppose you prefer the tabloid title-tatle for your facts?

some, can and do blame the reffs, some, can and do blame individual mistakes, nothing much Moyes can do about that, once they're over the white line etc etc.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

As I see it we have a chicken and egg thing, did Moyes institutionalised caution which has. or so it seems on some occasions, permeated into the very fabric of the squad, come as a result on the lack of investment or was it there all along.

We used to say .. we'll never know, but backed by united's money we now have the chance to see if Moyes will morph into Total Football Man or will he choose to win the league 1-0 at a time like the early 70's Arsenal

KITAP1... but with better players to KIT and RvP et al, to more regularly do the P1.

The ( could be, who really knows? ) chicken may have moved on, but there are still no eggs in boys pen bill's basket for whoever comes next.

' They ' are in the process of ditching the NSNO motto when it was never more needed.

Does this 'proof' take it account the late goals we score in games (or do they not apply, just because?), or events such as the last min 'winner' by Luis Cannibal at Goodison that never was?

If Suarez hadnt stamped on Mirillas in the Goodison Derby we wouldnt have been denied his attacking influence for a 3rd of the season........

I don't think we underachieved this season – in the sense that the squad was limited in terms of energy and ability in some areas. Even though they did play some lovely football for Everton standards, that is the norm for many many teams across Europe: good precise passing, controlling the ball, nice combinations etc. That is the starting point for the next stage; that is the measurement where we must begin to attack the next level, ie, European Football.

But for many times this year we played poorly; the team seemed tired or unmotivated and not living up to their talent. It was the best team for a while, but at times shaky at the back, and obviously in need of an in-form striker. But that quality we showed many times this season must be the starting point for each season, rather than our goal to get that far.

If Suarez had been sent off for stamping on Distin he wouldn't have been on the pitch to score the goal that never was.

.....and if my auntie had bollocks.......!

Yes, er, well put Richard. It is a nonsense to selectively pick moments from a season as one can just as easily pick ones to counter the argument. There have been numerous games, particularly first half of the season, when we should have been out of sight but we didn't kill those games off and were always susceptible to losing the points we deserved on the balance of play and chances created. But we've also picked up plenty of points fortuitously. I think 6th is a accurate reflection of our season, disappointing as it is given the optimism and the quality of our play last Autumn.

What pissed me off this season was the number of times we were attacking when time was up and the ref would blow but when our opponents were attacking the ref would wait until the ball was in midfield. I don't have any stats or anything but were any of our goals against scored after time was up?

These things certainly don't even themselves out. Until we get away from all this 'interpretation of the rules' bollocks football will continue to wear it's corruption openly.

BTW, there's a lot of money at stake if Chelsea and arsenal both get the required results to trigger a play off. I might just have 50p for a Chelsea-Everton draw.

I think what Derek highlights the ' institutionalised caution' is as good a reason as any to explain our number of dropped points in games we should have won at a canter. Whether the manager or players were responsible for this we will find out in the coming season. The team as a whole never seem to expect to score a shedful of goals and we never really saw our dominance of the ball translated into big wins, not a single team was given a hammering by us and most games were tighter than they should have been.

If the new manager can keep the attributes that the team already has and inject a confidence and belief that Everton are allowed to score as often as they can, maybe we can mount a greater challenge to the top 4 or at least see a few of our games ending with scorelines that reflect the ability of the side, rather than hanging on to games and paying the price for individual errors or bad officiating.

Patrick, I agree to an extent, but I also hope the new manager keeps up this season's record of Everton leading the way in % of passes played in the opposition third.

Its not like we've been playing catenaccio all season.

Everton are about 14 goals not scored is the reason why Everton could not secure a champions league place. Mainly because Jelavic failed as a goal scorer during the 2012/2013 premier league season.

I don't get this "institutionalised caution permeating the very fabric of the club" idea, sorry Derek.

Does this approach somehow take us from the brink of relegation but only to 6th place and no further?

Or is it that Moyes is a "choker" as I heard someone at the match describe him on Sunday?

Or is it that the teams that finished above us this season are just better than us, both in terms of their first team and depth of squad?

We don't have a Van Persie or a Rooney or a Tevez or a Silva or a Lampard or a Wilshere or a Walcott or a Bale or dare I say a Suarez - all game changers that cost tens of millions.

Our best/most valuable players are a midfielder, a left back and a centre back not a game winning attacker since they command fortunes that we don't have.

I guess we'll be able to find out soon enough whether Moyes is really a choker or not.

I was at Fulham and still find it hard to believe we didn't win a game that we completely dominated from start to finish. These things should even out over a season and you can think back to LIverpool and Spurs at home when we gained four points at the end against the odds. However, it is certainly true to say we lost five points needlessly in the dying moments of the games Len names

We just needed last years Jelavic this year.