One more “L” in the results column

Strangely the bookies are offering 250/1 on relegation, I would have thought those odds would have come right in? Let's hope they're right like usual.

“Our own Fab Four” (Tosun and Bolasie were included in that hahahaha)

“We don't expect to beat the top six” (well make that the top ten now Farhad)

“We are no longer a museum”

No, museums are run by intelligent people, we are run by jackass spin doctors and snake oil salesmen.

Guess what?

There will be at least six more “L” results this season.

What's our record loss total in the Premier League?

We could be beating that this season.

Moshiri hired a manager with a relegation on his CV and who has never completed a season in charge of a Premier League club, so what did we seriously expect?

My epileptic dog would appear to have more knowledge of football than our much heralded billionaire owner. None of his billions of course were made from football.

Silva is incompetent, inexperienced, incapable, and as far as his pressers are concerned, mostly incomprehensible. If he talks to the players the way he talks to the press, it's no wonder we're in such a mess. They probably don't know what the hell he's talking about either.

In any business, if things are going wrong, a good manager takes immediate steps to put things right. With Silva, there is no change at all. Same inane tactics, same predictable substitutions, (take off best players, throw on every attacker on the bench), and no sign of any passion from the touchline.

We are, despite what some of us think, still in danger of falling into the relegation scrap, unless we can find a few wins, and can anyone, hand on heart, see where they're coming from?

Both Cardiff and Burnley are suddenly resurgent and we can count on the other teams below us to fight for every point between now and the end of the season. The operative word there is 'fight', the one important ingredient that Silva is incapable of instilling in our team. If he could do it, we would have seen it by now

Vote of confidence or not, surely Moshiri can see his words were seriously misplaced and that the time has come to protect his investment in the club, before we free-fall into oblivion?

What would be the point of a new ground of we end up languishing in the championship? If he can't see that then he's as incompetent as Silva. How long does he need before he acts? Wait until we are a couple of points above the bottom three and it will be too late for anyone to make a difference. The time to act is now, while there's time for somebody, anybody, or any black cat, to save us from disaster. The Portuguese see a black cat as a portent of disaster and bearing in mind our black cat moment came in a home game, that can only have been intended for Silva.

The time to act is NOW, before we deteriorate even further.

Some 60th anniversary celebration eh?

His extra midfielder was, in my opinion, an attempt to address the tactic started successfully by Newcastle and by subsequent teams to flood Everton's midfield.

The basic defending rule of staying close and aiming to get in front of the player you are marking and always challenging the ball doesn't seem to be in Silvas coaching repertoire.

The continual mismatching and changing of forwards gives Everton one of the worst pass-completion rates in the Premier League in the final third. Every team knows that, in a Silva side, the forwards' objective is to shoot rather than pass, no matter how unsuitable.

Richarlison is devoid of any evidence of coaching development on appropriate passing or the importance of pass completion. A totally unsuitable forward combination with Tosun. Tosun as a lone striker was never going to happen, He doesn't have the pace. The peripheral Walcott was never going to be a game changer.

It all got too desperate for any successful substitutions in the closing period of the game.

The unaddressed problems are starting to snowball and have been since Xmas. The attempt by Silva to throw the kitchen sink at them from the off against Watford failed.

One person has to be offloaded quickly and it isn't Silva just yet. It is the brooding presence of the ghost of seasons past.

Lyndon, You could write the match report on Friday night and put your feet up for the rest of the weekend.

Like most Blues, desperately disappointed yet again, mulling it all over in bed in the quiet hours of early morning.

The thought that bothers me greatly is that after Wolves went 2-1 ahead, and yesterday after Watford went 1-0, I knew that was it.

It is heartbreaking that we have no response. The quality, drive, belief and dynamism that are the hallmarks of Everton Football Club have gone.

There are many issues, but I will keep on banging on about not having the necessary quality goal scorer.

Lukaku was a 25-goal-a-season striker, we were always in the game with him, always had threat. in four seasons he got 16, 20, 25, & 26 goals. We were knocking on the door of the top 6 in a couple of his years here. The last time we finished 5th was when Yakubu scored 21. It raises other players games . We had bad problems during his time too but at least we had threat and the chance to win games from nothing.

Getting in a class goal scorer is the most important thing in football. No goals, no wins. Alex Ferguson would move heaven and earth to get his goal scorers in, he knew it was life and death for his teams.

Tosun is trying but as Lyndon says is a few shades short of the required quality. Calvert-Lewin needs to learn his trade week in week out on loan in the Championship for a season. I want to see him prove himself and come back a better player.

Nothing will improve with any sustainability until we have the top class striker in. It is an absolute priority, and has been for the last 2 years since Lukaku left.

Since that time we have been in a whirlpool of decline we can't swim out of, no matter how hard any manager, staff or player tries.

The can lies with the manager, coaches and players, and they need to take a serious look at this mess and decide if they want to fight their way out of it.

It doesn't bode well for the rest of this season.

How on earth have we got to this if we have professional and competent people asking the right questions about the attitude, application and ability of those they employ.

Harry Catterick once said he felt a failure when we finished 3rd in 1968-69. The current staff, on that scale of self-reflection, would be resigning.

The self-proclaimed best ever Evertonian could not keep up financially when the money exploded in the Premier League. Bill really needed to sell the club to someone with the financial clout to take the club forward to realise Evertons dreams.

This was a problem, though, as the ending for his dreamy plays had our very own Bill holding aloft the trophy and his name in lights over the shiny new stadium. Bill needed a clueless mug with some money to buy his shares but still let Bill be chairman. Haha, as if there was such a fool out there.

Cue Moshiri, obviously a good lieutenant in business to Usmanov but clearly not well versed in football and apparently a dreamer too as he was suckered into Bill's dream and left Boys Pen Bill as Chairman.

Although we don't know the extent of Bill's involvement I suspect it is far too much given the amount of jobs for the boys at the club and Unsworth's own words during his caretaker stint last season that the Chairman rings him several times a day.

We should be very afraid of the Moshiri / Kenwright double act. Their choices of Managers has been horrendous and transfer dealings absolutely laughable.

Why oh why does a great club like Everton keep looking to employ managers whose only notable record in the Premier League is a relegation.

Marco Silvas record in the Premier League regarding performances, set pieces, relegation and not lasting very long at all should have been scrutinised thoroughly and then it would have been clear he was not what was required at Everton FC, regardless of his fabled stories of being a great young coach.

Instead our dreamy duo of clowns pursued him and paid compensation for him. The result is what we are witnessing now, another clueless clown who is out of his depth.

How long can this miserable dream go on? Well, I fear it will go on as long as the dreamy duo are involved together regardless of who is manager.

Nil Satis Nisi Optimum, don't make me laugh, it should be changed to ‘Home of the Clueless Clowns'.

There goes the positive attitude I have tried to maintain since the Spurs defeat.

A club's identity comes from two things, the history and the supporters. To retain the identity, the history is vital. We should be a museum whilst progressing in the present. The museum aspect should inspire us, drive us forward to demand success. The museum tells us how professional we were in the past, and how our success was helped by that professionalism.

It's the history (the museum) and the supporters that make (or should make) us regard mid-table as simply intolerable, to drive us to the top again.

It strikes me that the culture at the top of Everton does not fit our identity (our history and supporters) well. To be a good fit, the culture needs to be professional, and to understand what football at the very top requires. The present culture does not seem to tick those boxes, and until it does Everton will remain mediocre.

He's been described as 'beleaguered' (key word).

He's appearing to pick the team and formation out of a hat.

The players look confused and clueless.

We're getting used to this, aren't we?

We know what's coming soon, don't we?

The argument that he won't be sacked because we're already paying around £14m a year to ex managers is ludicrous. That's the price of a mediocre squad player and the alternative is losing £ms in placing money or, even, relegation.

He needs to go, and to go now, and not at the end of the season.

I have seen success and failure but have stuck with Everton - - in recent months for the first time in 60 years I have missed several games through illness and for the first time in my life hospital - - but I have literally dragged myself out of hospital/bed to get to the game. I went to The City game straight from Clatterbridge Cancer Centre on Wednesday.

I have thought how to respond and I can only say that the "L" Column should also stand for "Lost".

We are completely lost - - everything involved in the footballing side is at the moment a complete disaster and failure:

- - dreadful Management recruitment
- - poor signings
- - poor Club Management at Board Level
- - woeful lack of any team spirit
- - no drive or ambition
- - seemingly no care desire or passion
- - disgraceful decision making on selection, tactics, free kicks, corners, passes
- - no will to win
- - no responsibility
- - no leadership anywhere within the Club
- - acceptance of defeat and no fight

I see Fred Pickering died - - - saw his hat trick debut against Forest - - never saw him as "the best" but he could score - - - how we could do with someone like Fred now.

Of course I will continue to go to every game but there is absolutely "nothing" and I mean "nothing" at Goodison that excites me or even right now gives me hope for the future - - L is for Losers from top to bottom - - except for the wonderful fans of course.

I carry my cosmic grooves around with me and the heart surgeon and Cancer Specialist both told me it was "my spirit" that helped get me through - - I am near enough through it all now - - where is the "spirit" at Goodison.

I pass on my cosmic grooves to All Blues - - we are Bluetiful.

I suppose it must be the interest free loan from Moshiri that allows it because we'd be swimming in debt under Kenwright, so we owe him that much – it's just a shame it has gone to waste.

I'm trying to stay positive, player recruitment and sales seems a bit better since Brands in my opinion, but the coaching and management of those players seems no better than Martinez last season.

As for Silva, you have summed it up with your list. the guy has lost it. The players have no faith in his methods – if they understood him to begin with. A sensible course of action is to quickly arrange a caretaker manager and fire him.

He is lucky his next game is away because I think the home fans have reached the point of toxicity. If he had any honour, he would hold his hands up and aplogise to all and sundry for the mistakes and beg for a bit longer. Alas, he is waiting for either a miracle or the pay-off.

Everything you say there is true, Mr Brands has got his work cut out to sort it. He is a director now and needs to grab the club by the scruff of the neck.

The fans of the club are what makes Everton great. In 10 days time, the fans will be back supporting and willing the club to win, at the Cardiff ground, all over Merseyside, and the world.

I remember the very dark days as a teenager before we went on our mid-eighties rampage. We were terrible, but I remember turning up to the match one dark midweek game and thinking the more the adversity the more the fans need to support the club.

Anyway on a different cosmic level altogether, all the best to you, George, great that you are feeling better.

We're shite because we're shite, end of; and the players don't need the 'legacies' of skint Bill or supposed European domination ripped from our grasp to perform as poorly as they've been doing for the past 2 months?

Where is their professional pride? Are their agents still knocking at the manager's door telling him that 'my boy' is top class and needs to be paid accordingly?

Next question, do we sack Silva? I posted during the week that Gana is our senior player and he's been here for 3 seasons, next comes Davies & Kenny and all the rest came this season or last.
So it's a new side that will take time to bed in.

So if we sack Silva the whole process starts over again, so will the next manager be Moyesesque dynasty. or Bobby Brown Shoes, Koeman, Silva revolving door, with Moshiri throwing ever more of his billions at under-performing players.

That being said Silva's team selection yesterday was baffling. On the back of a decent energetic performance against City, he shuffled the pack unnecessarily, and his perseverance with playing Sigurdsson in roles he's totally unsuited for makes me wonder how he managed to get the reputation of a great coach.

Sigurdsson isn't a left-sided attacker, he's too slow to be a No 10, so play him further back, a la Montino at Wolves, or bench him and bring him on with 20-30 to go when we're (hopefully) winning.

Once again, a depressing season to be a blue; and thank God for the good start.

Best wishes to you, George.

Your last point is, perhaps, the most salient. All of us, from the top to the bottom, seem to accept defeat far too easily. It certainly wouldn't have been tolerated in the 1960s.

Our last managers have come from:

Watford
Unemployed
Southampton
Wigan
Preston

The club as a whole is a joke and has been since the 60s in all honesty.

I hope you are right about Brands although I have little faith in the position of DOF. I think all it does is add another layer of confusion, and our recent history tells us it doesnt work. Koeman and Walsh the dream team who between them bought 3 number 10s, so who did decide that Rooney,Klassen and Sigurdsson would be good buys. Also who sanctioned buying Sandro and paying him £100,000 per week Walsh or Koeman, who bought Onyekuru and agreed to pay him £40,000 a week without finding out if we could get clearance for him to play for us.

Then move onto Brands and Silva who bought Mina? and then took Zouma on loan again 2 men in position to buy players doesnt work. Usually top managers tell clubs who they want and the DOF goes and does the deal, not like us were both DOF and manager buy players.

Or up front! Any port in a storm! Didn't Fred Pickering start as a defender and ended up as a forward? John Charles? Gareth Bale?

And Sandy Brown could play anywhere.

Please share your insight with the rest of us and tell us what you 'particularly rate' about Silva.

I agree we have become a bit of a joke but let's not get carried away. There was a period, in the 1980s, when we weren't that bad!

I guess it's obvious, so many opinions, mainly wide of the mark, lots of finger pointing. It was obvious to me Koeman was a mistake, especially such a change in style to Martinez (oh, I'm sorry, I should call him Brown Shoes, shouldn't I). Allardyce was necessary and did enough to get more time... but no, he was hounded out. Next came a strange choice in Silva.

Whether Arteta (and yes Pep got the Barca job with no senior experience) or Moyes or Santa, we need someone that actually knows what he has in the squad. We all knew that Moyes got a response from the team after any setback. But now to this when we don't even look like ever turning a corner (or ever scoring from one). Whatever. I'm done will all this bollox.

My hope, for what it's worth, is that we stick with Silva who in the first few months of the season sketched out (and I stress "sketched") a style and approach which Evertonians rightly found promising. The wheels have obviously come off but I persist in the view that a top striker and commanding midfielder (ideally two of each) would transform this side.

No-one could manage the unbalanced, unthreatening outfit we currently have to more than a couple of places either side of 10th. Once we get that balance and threat – and the strength of mind to be introduced by a proper leader(s) – then we will have a chance over a 5-year period to develop and in the end to maintain a challenge at the higher level of the Premier League.

We depend on Brands to deliver the base for that, on our board acting intelligently and on our milksop players growing up and realising their privilege. Of course, it could go the other way and, specifically, if we don't get in serious strikers then we will carry on flopping and could easily get into a downward spiral.

I don't think that throwing names around for a new manager will help us one bit because it doesn't get to the root causes and it lets the real culprits off the hook.

Can't get any worse? Just wait and see... Hard to see this squad having anything that would frighten a kids team – let alone the Premier League.

Moshiri and Co are totally to blame. They put so much effort into getting this guy who had no pedigree whatsoever to recommend him... and why? Who's bright idea was it?

They have done the same thing with some of the second rate players they have obtained who were generally out of favour elsewhere but were considered good enough to come to Goodison and now look at the mess.

Roll on, May!

We are IN a downward spiral and it alarms me that the current manager doesn't seem to have the slightest idea how to get out of it.

I think it goes a lot deeper than that, and I also think that it goes back many years.

First, good to hear that you are not quite ready to 'go gentle into that good night'. Keep on raging and keep on winning that fight, fellah.

As for your post, you capture very neatly what we are as a club these days:

'Lost'. And lost in all the ways you list, and more.

Only at Everton, it seems, can we finally land a billionaire benefactor (which was the trigger for lesser clubs to rise to the top of pile) and actually get worse and go into reverse.

Three years of serious money has been thrown into the pot. Three years of musical chairs for the manager's post. Three years of excruciatingly bad player recruitment...and we are considerably poorer for it.

Marco Silva will, in all likelihood given Moshiri's words this week, remain in situ until the end of the season. Beyond that, without a serious, SERIOUS upturn in fortunes, all bets that he will still be our manager into the summer are off.

What a mess. How 'Lost' we truly are, George.

I also blame Kenwright for this dreadful mess. This is his legacy after 20 years of decline, an utter shambles of a club from top to bottom, populated by Kenwright's chums, old boys and yes men. It is a disgrace and an insult to the fans that he remains as chairman.

The situation has not been helped by shocking purchases. Walcott, Tosun, Bernard, Richarlison, Mina — all not good enough. Sigurdsson looks finished to me, his legs have gone. Bought too late, he is 30 in September.

Surely Silva should have known Richarlison's faults.

Management & players should have a chat with you about overcoming real adversity.

I have to guess you are not a gambling man?

Or if you are, you're not a punter who studies form and runs the numbers before having a bet, and so regularly hand over your money to the bookies on a hunch.

Why do I say that? Because of the following:

You – and many others – continue to base your belief that we will be sucked into a relegation fight because you can't see where we are going to garner 7 points from in our remaining 11 fixtures to reach the 'mythical 40 points' tally.

We don't NEED 40 points to be safe from relegation.

In the 23 seasons since the PL moved to a 38 game season, only 3 teams of a possible 69 relegated teams were relegated with 40 points and above: Sunderland in 1996-97 with 40 points, Bolton in 1997-98 (40) and West Ham in 2002-03 (42).

The last time a team was truly 'saved' from relegation by getting to 40 points was in 2010-11, when both Birmingham and Blackpool were relegated with 39 points.

For the last 11 seasons now, 35-36 points is the 'new 40' to be safe from relegation. This season will be no different, looking at the current Premier League table and form as it stands.

Huddersfield and Fulham are gone. They are not getting out of the hole they are in. That leaves one more relegation spot, currently occupied by Southampton on goal difference with Newcastle, with both on 24 points – 9 points behind us. Then you have Cardiff on 25 and 3 clubs – Palace, Brighton and Burnley – on 27 points. All these teams are averaging a point or less per game over the season.

In taking a Doomsday approach and claiming Everton can still be sucked into a relegation scrap, people are looking at Everton in isolation, as if we are the only team struggling to get points. We are not.

Is Everton's form since the defeat at Anfield in early December relegation from? Abso-bally-lutely! And yet – even in this pitiful run in which we have won just 11 points, we are not in the bottom 3 form table in the 12 games played since then.

Those 3 places are filled by Brighton and Fulham (9 points) and Huddersfield (1 point). Leicester also have just 11 points in that time, Newcastle 12, Bournemouth 13 and Cardiff and Palace 15.

The notion that Everton can still be relegated THIS season rests on the highly improbable logic that all six teams still battling to avoid the third relegation spot (plus 3 other teams still behind us in the league, but closer on points to us: West Ham, Bournemouth and Leicester) will ALL put in a winning run of performances (which none of them have achieved this season to date), whereas Everton will run Sunderland's all-time Premier League record of 15 consecutive defeats close and not pick up another point for the rest of the season.

This notion also ignores that ALL the clubs below us also play many games against the same group of clubs. That is, they will be taking points off each other.

The bookies odds on Everton being relegated are long for a good reason: Everton will not be relegated this season.

Should this be the height of our ambition? Was this what Silva, Brands and new players were recruited for? Again, abso-bally-lutely not!

It is a shame, a disgrace, how pitiful our performances and form is. This needs to be seriously reviewed at the end of the season.

Because whilst I am adamant we will stumble our way to the absolute minimum of another 3-6 points which will still be enough to avoid relegation THIS season, like many, I am concerned that starting next season with the same manager and the same form would most certainly see us in a relegation dogfight in 2019-20.

The management has once again been taken for a ride by a conman masquerading as a manager. Blame Silva all you like but the management, Kenwright and Moshiri, hired him. That's where the blame lies.

Who's to say they won't do it again. Experience tells us they will, unless someone who knows what they're doing, Brands? takes the decision. The never-ending project continues...

Without doubt, this is the most head-boiling season I've witnessed in the Premier League years, because we've seen some dross and this ranks with some of the worst, but why?

When we had good honest triers like Scott Gemmill, Carl Tiler, Mitch Ward, we were relegation fodder and you can rationalise that.

This is different. This is a group of talented players that we've seen put good performances in up to and including the derby.

Lack of character? Lack of motivation? We've seen Man Utd transformed (albeit with better players) with a change of manager. But, like you, I agree that we ain't going down (but we could finish up bottom half) but let's get to summer, get rid of the still top-heavy squad and see where we are around Christmas.

And chances are it will be the usual mid-table finish, points somewhere between 45 and 60 (at the lower end this season), and many suggestions on how to get out of the cycle and return to glory.

As far as I can see, we can get out of the cycle and return to glory only by having someone like Usmanov here, with money to attract the very best players.

The real issue is that we have to recruit managers better. The unlikely, but worth a go, stellar appointment, or another hopeful punt.

I'd make the focus as much on communication and man-management as on winning titles in other countries. It is abundantly clear that Martinez, Koeman and now Silva were/are unable to get their ideas across to the players and motivate them.

Yes, the players should do this themselves, but it all stems from the management. The best leaders in any walk of life have this ability.

We have a half-decent, if imbalanced squad. It badly needs a strong character to manage it.

You can bet your life that those claiming we won't win another game and will get relegated will not be backing their bold statements up with hard cash. They know they would be given a very warm reception down the bookies, but they won't be going.

Fantastic to hear Huddersfield fans singing "We'll fight to the end!"

Some of our lot are already singing "We'll raise the white flag."

Rafa the genius has left a trail of disaster behind him across Europe since the shite dumped him and the UEFA cup win for Chelsea was even luckier than anything he spawned across the park.

Mina looks a complete write off to me, slow, poor tackler, not dominant in the air, miss judges crosses, prone to foot injuries.

Bernard, too lightweight and never scores.

Gomes, slow, doesn't provide assists or goals.

Let's hope he becomes more familiar with the demands of the Premier League.

I agree we have a half decent squad which the current manager cannot get a tune out of and the next manager needs to be a proven communicator and not some hopeful punt.

It's also true many of the teams below us have to play each other and so cannot win all their matches. The alarming thing is they seem to be able to beat us quite easily (Burnley excepting) and maybe, like Cardiff and Burnley, others may put a bit of a run together.

I've seen all our games and we've been showing relegation form more, or less, since the Derby match. I cannot recall a single game where we've put concerted pressure on a side apart from the last few desperate minutes but there have been plenty of times when, so-called, lesser clubs have had us under the cosh for 15-20 minute spells.

If we lose to Cardiff, which is more than likely, they close the gap a little further. This is not being negative: it's facing the reality of what could become a desperate situation. We're now reduced to hoping for a point, at Cardiff, to maintain the status quo.

So glad you're on the mend and able to rejoin the 60+ club. A very privileged club that has seen the NSNO flag waving proudly through many decades.

However since the inception of the Premier League which we were leading advocates of and included in the "top 5" as it was then known our serial decline has been huge.

It is sad to see so many supporters saying don't blame Kenwright but at a time when football was awash with money and potential investors all he was interested in was holding on to his trainset and running us on a shoestring without any investment by him and ridiculously expensive and shady loans from his buddies.

He has set us back so far that it is hard to imagine ever rejoining the elite.

Can any of us imagine Sir John Moores reaction after that 2-6 loss to Spurs at home.

There would have been a line of taxis on Goodison Road.

Any board with a modicum of ambition would have fired Silva on that one game alone but no this is Everton and we will try to back a drowning man until he actually drowns in which case we can claim it was sad but unavoidable.

I will never forget Kenwright's exclamation of "What a manager" when that dickhead Martinez got one decent result.

Clueless and lacking ambition except for his own ego massage.

But

Our next 5 home fixtures are: Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd and finally Burnely.

That could well be 4 straight home defeats before what could turn out to be a 6-pointer.

Last game of the season, away at title challengers Spurs.

Away at Newcastle, another 6 pointer. Away at Cardiff, also. Can you see Silva getting a result away at Palace? Or West Ham? Me neither.

If we continue in this vein, relegation is a possibility. Silva has to go, and asap.

Crazy days for the fans, I think we get off on the fear of relegation. Just about safe this season maybe ? but hey we got the whole of next season to sweat it out. We're hooked on our weekly shot of misery.

Having confirmed that he's shit - which he clearly is - sack him. Now or at the end of the season, whatever. Who should we get in? I have no idea, that's for Brands to decide. I mean, the club pay him a lot of money to know who to appoint, so let him do it. If he gets it wrong again, sack that fucker as well. And sack Brands at the same time.

This football lark - it's not complicated.

The way it's going I'm becoming regrettably confident that the day after Bramley-Moore Dock is opened as our new home there'll be a hitherto unknown fissure discovered in the earth's crust that means our stadium ends up settling somewhere near Anglesey.

Until the players on big contracts who don't give a shit move on, we will always end up in this mess. We have a spineless dressing room. Do you think there's been any finger pointing amongst the players? Any of them looking in the mirror? I don't think so.

In a better dressing room with a few leaders, Richarlison would have been told to pack in all of this playacting. He keeps coming into the pitch, sulking, playing shite, and it's allowed to keep happening. Very frustrating.

We haven't even applied for planning permission yet and we have no concrete plans available for the design of the stadium until at the earliest next December.

Still pie in the sky.

Our fixture list and the way we're performing worries me, too. Maybe we'll get an unexpected win, or a couple of draws, somewhere along the way but that seems unlikely at the moment.

I think it's absolutely vital we avoid defeat at Cardiff.

On a serious note I too have experienced a bad year health wise, but not as bad as yourself, I admire your spirit, your Doctor and Consultant are spot on, when they say it's your spirit that has carried you through, if only the Everton players could display the same commitment.

I'm afraid that the last five managers have just about knocked the stuffing out of me, it no longer hurts me when we lose, I used to live for match days, but now there is no atmosphere and it's as though we anticipate the same lack lustre performances, the Manchester City game being an exception.

In closing George, once again it's good to know that you are on the mend, and we must make an excuse for another Midland Hotel get-together.

The poison is having a dressing room half full of players seeing out their days, some of whom couldn't care less about the club. Honestly, look at the players in our squad who are 28+, not performing, and know that this is their last pay day:

Stekelenburg
Baines
Jagielka
Schneiderlin
Walcott
Sigurdsson

Add in others who were on big money and ostracised:

Niasse
Mirallas
Bolasie
Sandro
Williams

We are probably still paying 50% of that lot's wages!

That could have been our first choice team! And they have all stunk the house out. With 2 or 3 notable exceptions (Baines, Jagielka, maybe Niasse), you can't tell me that that lot have been giving their all for the club, and have had a positive influence. It's bound to divide any dressing room having shit like this lot earning double and triple the wages of some of our unsung players like Gana Gueye.

We need to get rid of most of this lot, and get some young, hungry players with good character in. It's going to be a long painful journey I fear...

I believe we are not working hard enough to defend our own goal. No leaders means no organising on the pitch. We all need a leader in a team to motivate, give a rollicking or put a arm round certain players. There is no substitute for hard work. The best teams in the world do it.

It's going to be the end of February till our next game. Enough time to change the management but whom? No club is going to release a manager involved in a league title. Might as well stick with silva. His biggest challenge of his management life coming up. His only defence is the team is not his own. Do we give up on someone just because they are struggling? The director of football needs to put his arm around silva and support him. He is still learning his trade.

"He is still learning His Trade"!!

Has to be the most ridiculous comment I have ever read on ToffeeWeb.

What is your timeframe on completion of learning his trade????

Just blindly sticking with a manager is a recipe for disaster if he does not show any of the above as it means things will not improve, however long you give him.

Unfortunately, for me, Silva does not show any of the signs that warrant more time or further chances. Sticking with him will simply see us lose more games and the situation get worse. Time to get rid and get a decent manager in – please, no more untried coaches at Premier League level or managers who have been relegated or performed badly at previous clubs. The signs were there with Silva if people had wanted to see them .

We win that. Then we have a thread of confidence back at home against the RS. Away to them we matched them for 99.9% of the game until you know what happened. Why can't we do the same and better at home?

On current form those 2 wins are unlikely. But we were playing well up to that 96th-minute goal. If we can get that form back wins against Cardiff, then home against Liverpool are not impossible to imagine. What's the odds 7/4 and 7/1?

These next 2 games could redeem Silva, could change his future and Everton's future. Stranger things have happened at much bigger odds than them. Silva needs to pull the rabbit out of the hat over these 2 games, or Mr Moshiri will wave his wand and make Marco disappear.

A workman like win over Cardiff followed by a blood on the pitch win against Liverpool — with a few slices of luck in our favour for a change].

Try it. I didn't put anything ridiculous in, just feasible results, which did include us losing away at Cardiff and Newcastle, and at home to Liverpool and Chelsea (but those results would hardly be surprising on current form would they?).

Anyway, I had us in the bottom three by the middle of March. I stopped at that point – too scary. You might say it won't happen, but I'm starting to shit myself just a little bit.

On the bright side, Man City were two points clear after my calculations

Afterwards, Ian Wright commented that someone was going to get spanked by Palace soon. My immediate thought was that he could have been referring to us when we go there. It could well happen. Even Benteke will score against us, probably from a set piece!!

If a side gets 20-odd attempts against us, like Palace have had in a few of their home games, they wiil score a few!

Sorry for your loss, it is never easy, but the memories are always for keeps.

A fun link, but I'd love to know the results you keyed in that had us in the bottom 3 by mid-March: given current tallies by all teams, it is mathematically impossible on the points to be won and the fixtures to be played, even if you predicted the worst possible result for Everton of ALL the teams.

I completed the predictions – and that's all they are – to the last game of the season for all teams. I deliberately refrained from giving a single victory to Everton in the remaining games (which we will achieve, somewhere, somehow) and gave us at best a 1-1 draw.

I was as kind as possible to all the teams below us (many of who have to play many games themselves against each other, thus robbing each other of possible maximums), but still we finished 12th.

All the other teams in my biased predictions against Everton (other than Fulham and Huddersfield) garnered a better points return than us in the remaining fixtures, but even so, nowhere near enough to overhaul us.

The teams in most danger of filling that 3rd relegation spot on my calculations (and their very challenging fixtures) are Newcastle, Cardiff and Southampton.

Oh! And the pinkies across the park will win the title by one point from City.

Methinks you are scaremongering unnecessarily, Michael.

RS lost the league on goal difference! Now that would be sweet.

I only entered results up to and including the Chelsea game. The teams around and below us play each other quite a few times over that period, and I entered completely feasible results – literally not one of them would be a shock – but obviously erred towards the worst case scenario for us.

Of course, results aren't going to follow exactly the scores that I entered, but I didn't have to overdo things much to have us in the third relegation spot. So, it's clearly not impossible by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm not scaremongering – I'm simply pointing out that, if we don't pick up some points from our next four games, we could be in a sticky situation if results go against us in the mid- to lower-table battle.

I also have Liverpool winning the league by a single point.

You can blame him for formations, tactics, motivation etc. etc. but you can't blame him for a player that can't make a 5-yard pass.

It all went to shit after the RS jammied that derby goal, so why can't it work in reverse with a 1-0 win off Tosun's arse on 3rd?

The problem with our team has been as obvious as Michael Jackson being a paedo, we don't have anyone to put the ball in the onion bag.

Richarlson for 㿼M, yes fucking please.

I had the strangest conversation with someone about him, "he does fuck all but score occasionally", bizarre thing to say but true.

Usually on his arse moaning or feigning an injury or not passing to a Blue or trying daft shots. Can't stand him, but unfortunately, he is our top scorer.

We need a forward, which should have been sorted January and we need a nasty fucker in the middle to get the team going.

Things are that bad at the moment, I found myself reminiscing about the good times with Phil Neville there, standing about pointing at spaces FUCKING PHIL NEVILLE??????

Christ, I swore I wouldn't let Everton get me this worked up again, but hey ho!

A puppet is the last thing the club needs. How many other Premier League clubs have a puppet chairman. We need a dynamic, inspirational chairman to revitalise us from the top down.

Kenwright staying as chairman gives completely the wrong message to the club's employees. He ruined EFC with 20 years of incompetence and is now a millstone around our neck and an embarrassment. We will never make any progress as long as he is there.

That's a beauty, mate! Made me laugh like Maniac.

The charge of scaremongering was made because you said your predictions had us in the bottom 3 by mid-March after the Chelsea game.

As I said previously, that is a mathematical impossibility given the fixtures of ALL the 12 teams from Everton below in that time scale, even if you attempted to key in the very worst and most detrimental result combinations against Everton you could imagine.

If you believe the 'R' word is possible for Everton, put a quid on it to ease you pain when it does happen. As recently as yesterday you could get 500/1 for that to happen. One single bet at those odds is enough for bookies to adjust the price, but plenty still offering 250/1.

Fill yer boots!

Has Benitez really left clubs badly off since he was at Liverpool? He won the Italian Super Cup with Inter Milan and the FIFA World Club Cup. He won the Coppa Italia with Napoli in his first season. Finished 3rd in Serie A with Napoli in 2013-14, qualifying them for the Champions' League. He won Chelsea a UEFA Cup, meaning he is one of two people to win that trophy with 2 different clubs. He was hounded at Chelsea but I think they'd settle for how he was doing compared to now – they finished 3rd in his last season and 4th the season before, I think. He didn't do well at Real Madrid, admittedly but I'd settle for a single trophy at Goodison to be honest. We are extrapolating his time after he was at the RS. If you look at what he did for them and before then his record is very impressive. Even the most ardent anti-RS fan (which I am) must admit that.

It's laughable that people on here dismiss Benitez's achievements but some posters wanted to show us that Silva was a brilliant coach because he won some tin-pot cup in a tin-pot league.

Do we want a manager who has managed bigger clubs than Everton and won stuff or should we just take a punt on an up-and-coming manager again and see if it can turn out better than with Walker, Martinez and Silva?

Arsenal (A) 0 points
Fulham (H) 3 points
Man Utd (A) 0 points
Spurs (H) 0 points.
Watford (A) 0 points.

So that makes us still 6 points clear of Southampton. I can't be arsed looking at Fulham or Huddersfield fixtures as they aren't going to catch us.

So us to be in the bottom three by mid March Yeah right!.

Fulham
West Ham (A) 0 points
Southampton (A) 0 points
Chelsea (H) 0 points
Leicester (A) 0 points
Liverpool (H) 0 points
Man city (H) 0 points

Huddersfield
Newcastle (A) 0 points
Wolves (H) 0 points
Brighton (A) 0 points
Bournemouth (H) 1 point.
West Ham (A) 0 points
Palace (A) 0 points.

Again, just to show no bias, I'll say we will lose all our next 6 games, and none of the bottom three will still catch us.

Huddersfield should eventually win one and looking at their fixtures they could well do us a few favours. The plus for Everton is that so many of the clubs below us have still to play each other.

Now I don't see any Chelsea players saying that about Sarri, nor the Man Utd players saying that about Mourhino. I have never believed that the players weren't giving their all but, like often happens, the harder you try, the worse it gets for a while.

I don't see too many candidates who we could get that would guarantee a major turnaround. I think Brands and Silva must regret not buying a proven striker when they first joined the club.

I just wish Vardy was 4 years younger, he is exactly what we need, his know-how and pace worry defenders. Calvert-Lewin may in time be the answer but not now nor next season either. Tosun isn't and never will be the answer. Then add to the mix the very poor goal return from Bernard and Walcott – it's no wonder we are struggling to win games.

In contrast, we never really get many posts (if any) talking about the possibility of winning the league, despite that (on the face of it) we've got about as much chance of doing that as we have of being relegated.

Perhaps this reflects the overall problems at Everton, where there seems to be a lack of belief, a lack of winning mentality. Perhaps the problem extends to many of the supporters after so many years of falsely raised expectations.

Folks on ToffeeWeb keep going on about how we need fighters on the pitch. Well, in my opinion, and given that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, it starts with the small detail of belief, and that includes belief from the supporters.

Instead, we get bipolar disease on ToffeeWeb, posts flitting between hope and expectation in parts of the season, and apparent despair in other parts. When we're in the former category, many folks say it will be a bumpy ride, that there will be disappointments along the way, but that we'll get there in the end. Then, when things look a bit tits-up, despair kicks in, and the entire Everton hierarchy is shite.

This season has been especially noticeable for this bipolarity. In fact, the difference in ToffeeWeb between pre-derby and post-derby is striking.

I can myself understand it, because Everton have done my head in over the years. But we need to get a grip, a dose of reality, and realise that we need to keep supporting the players (especially), who are not in fact useless lazy spoilt bastards, but just footballers on 'ridiculous money' that has fuck-all to do with the ebb and flow of our performances on the pitch.

If we don't support them, the rest of the football world, especially our neighbours, will look on in amusement, and we don't need to be contributing to that nonsense.

After that Southampton then have Brighton (A), Liverpool (H), Wolves (H), Newcastle (A), Bournemouth, (H) West Ham (A) and finally Huddersfield (H).

I looked at Fulham and Huddersfield out of curiosity, and there's no way either of them will catch us.

We may well get dragged further down the table, but come the end of the season, we won't occupy a relegation place.

Firstly, it's not a mathematical impossibility. I've done it twice now using that link; first time I had us in the bottom 3 after the Chelsea game, second time after the West Ham game.

Secondly, if you read my post properly, I didn't say it was going to happen, I said it was a possibility if we don't pick up any points from our next four games and the rest of the results go against us. As I said, I didn't enter any massive shock results, though the second time I had Southampton beating Spurs 1-0 at home, so that probably counts as a shock.

Surely you can't believe them winning at Arsenal or United would not count as a shock?

You are absolutely right, it's about time that we made Goodison Park a place the opposition didn't like visiting. We even have people on here posting about being relegated, and trying to forecast how the games will go to the end of the season.

I think our fans would do well to see how Man Utd fans have behaved since Ferguson retired. Their results have been nothing like they have come to expect, yet they back their teams for the whole of the 90 minutes, whether winning or losing. And this is a club that is used to winning the Premier League on a very regular basis. So you could expect them to be more critical than us who have never won the Premier League.

I have never heard them boo their team at full-time when they have lost badly, yet some of our fans think the way to encourage our team, if losing at half-time, is to boo them off. I would say our away support is terrific — so how come the away support can be so brilliant and the home support at times is abysmal?

Their results look possible, if unlikely. Ours look unlikely but possible considering our form is the worst in the Premier League bar Huddersfield. We've won one of our last five Premier League games, and that was against the bottom club.

Of course it's possible for us or any of these teams to go down, but it is exceptionally unlikely. It is far more likely that we will finish 7th than get relegated. We won't do either.

All I am saying is that, if you feed results into the link above, with us carrying on our abysmal form, you don't actually have to put in any ridiculous scores for us to end up down near the bottom three. All it takes is a particular combination of results in the upcoming games.

Agreed Stan. For some, it's not just an annual event to express concerns about relegation, it's a weekly one, based on looking at Everton's results and performances in isolation and not taking into consideration other teams' form and results.

I don't see anyone seriously contesting that this has been a successful or acceptable season by Everton. It has fallen well short of what the manager and the players should be achieving.

But like you, I grow weary of the bipolar nature of some as you describe it, demanding fighters on the pitch (which I agree with), but then cluck-cluck-cluck that 'we're doomed I tells ya, doomed!'

Rob has done a sterling job highlighting Southampton's fixtures alone – the team currently occupying the third relegation spot – which makes a nonsense of Michael Lynch's claims that he didn't make any outrageous predictions to place Everton in the bottom 3 by mid-March.

And that is just one example. There are another 10 clubs below us other than just Southampton, but all 11 teams are going to overhaul Everton in the next 3-4 games, even when many of the fixtures pitch them against each other?

Ridiculous.

Do I think we are going to go down? Absolutely not. Do I think it is unthinkable that we could find ourselves in a relegation battle? Absolutely not.

The fact is, if our form continues, and Southampton beat Fulham, Watford and Brighton, we will be level on points with them.

I understand you are only trying to say we could be in the bottom three by mid-March but, as three of Southampton's next four games are against Arsenal, Man Utd and Spurs, it ain't gonna happen.

But mathematically... it could.

Three wins and a draw out of that lot...??? No Chance.

I was brutally honest with my predictions, as in not giving us a win when there was no chance of one, ie, the derby, and I have us finishing twelfth on 43 points (another 10 points as Tony Abrahams says @ post 104).Southampton finished fourth from bottom on 36 points!

And seriously? No chance of a win in the derby? Unless we believe we can and will win, then we won't.

There were four of us on the train back from Watford on Saturday and I ended up arguing with two of them because they are adamant we will, or at least could end up in the relegation places, and we've got absolutely no chance against the Red Shite.

It's bad enough listening to drivel from Liverpool supporters, but when our own supporters slag the players off and say we've got fuckall chance of winning, it totally does my head in.

I checked again. You are right. It is not 'mathematical impossible' for Southampton to overtake us by mid-March (the weekend fixtures of 16 March.

I am still interested to know, other than predicting zero points for Everton in that period from two home games to Liverpool and Chelsea and two away games to Cardiff and Newcastle as you state, where Southampton are going to get the 10 points to go above us, or the nine points to just draw level with us on 33 points AND improve their goal difference from -16 to better our -3, in their next five fixtures, given that Southampton's league form to date reads:

Home: W 2 D 6 L 5 F 15 A 21 Pts 12 (av. pts per game 0.92)
Away: W 3 D 3 L 7 F 13 A 23 Pts 12 (av. ppg 0.77)

Whereas these are the games and form of their opposition in this time frame:

A Arsenal - Home record W 10 D 2 L 1 F 28 A 11 Pts 32 (av. ppg 2.46)
H Fulham (I'll give you 3 points for that one)
A Man Utd - Home record W 7 D 4 L 1 F 25 A 16 Pts 25 (av. ppg 2.08 - even better with the Solskjær effect)
H Spurs - Away record - best in the PL - W 11 D 0 L 2 F 30 A 13 Pts 33 (av. ppg 2.54)
A Watford - Home record W 6 D 2 L 5 F 17 A 18 Pts 20 (av. ppg 1.82)

You keep repeating that you "didn't put anything ridiculous in, just feasible results". Prove it.

You not only presume Everton will get zero points from their own four games in the period to mid-March, but that in Southampton's five fixtures against the listed opposition they will get a minimum of 9 points AND vastly improve their goal difference just to get level with Everton's current tally, or 10 points to overhaul us.

Share with us which bare minimum of 3 games (which represents more than 50% of the paltry 5 games they have won in 26 games to date), given both the Saints home and away form, are they going to win to make this remotely plausible?

And that's just ONE team of the 11 still below in the league.

Sorry Micheal. I'll repeat what I originally said.

Scaremongering.

The club didn't sack him. Eighteen months later they were champions. The manager's name was Howard Kendall.

Patience. Silva deserves more than 26 games.

Until after the derby, it looked like Silva believed we could beat anyone, and had the players believing it too, which made me believe it.

We need to get back to that belief pronto. We're not Wolves or Newcastle, we're Everton, we've got superior players, and if we believe we'll win games we'll have more chance of doing so.

I want to believe that this form cannot continue but I have been trying to convince myself that since Burnley.

The Cardiff game could go either way and the other fixtures don't bear thinking about but if we don't reach 40+ points then heads must roll.

Let's go back to Moyes's last couple of seasons at the club. We had settled into the mentality of a middle-of-the-table club. Success was defined by our ability to reach 40 points. It was a glorious achievement to reach 4th in the table.

The football was dour most of the time and much like now if anybody was happy with the club they loved their words were always couched as they are today with much the same 'Ifs" about the poor team selections, and why the wanker insisted on playing Arteta on the wing instead of center midfield.

Blue Bill would state annually that he was still searching for the monied messiah who would lead us to the next new ground and the top four. They did a good job really and Moyes basically said toward the end that he had no idea how the heart of his team would ever be replaced given the resources that were just not available. Moyes went to Manchester United leaving behind a bunch of aging B players who were mostly past their middle-of-the-table prime.

That is the foundation that is built on. The rot that is now slowly being addressed started then.

Bobby Martinez hoodwinked us and the league for a while. The introduction of Stones gave the illusion of a new defensive shape but after the adrenaline rush of the new manager had worn off the inevitable crash. As Kristofferson sang, the going up was not worth the coming down and put us into an even worse place that Moyes seemed to have realized was inevitable anyway.

The at last the start of the new future arrived with the 5-year plan and all the rest of it. I thought Koeman would be a good coach maybe a bit dour and not exactly a barrel of laughs but a Steady Eddie type who would at least put in a new foundation.

DoF Walsh was a scout for Leicester and way out of his depth. Walsh was good at recognizing talent but, as anyone who has ever hired anyone will tell you, the most important part of hiring anybody to do anything is being able to assess if that personality is able to fit into and enhance the organization or team.

For instance, a Sigurdsson is light years ahead of a Tim Cahill in terms of pure talent but in terms of his effect on the team a digger like Cahill is worth three Sigurdsson's and a meat pie. Lukaku, Stones and Barkley all gone. They were doomed before the first ball was kicked.

We cannot allow ourselves to panic and change the management again. I do believe that we have a good management structure finally. We are probably would have been further ahead at this moment had we kept Koeman and replaced Walsh with Brands but only the Three-Eyed Raven could know for sure.

Marco Silva has had just half a year; he is a bright young coach who is not going to jam the game up to get a result. He tries to play with some fluidity like the Everton of old.

He has some good players but very very few leaders on this team. He inherited a mismatched midfield and lacks a goalscorer. What could we really expect at this point? Bring Moyes back we whimper, forgetting that he was Allardyce before Allardyce.

We are finally at the place where we can improve If we have to change coaches then we should but I swear it can only be Marcel Brands and not this bad run of results that can make that decision.

I don't normally have a negative attitude but with regard to the derby I'm merely going on what I've seen week in week out, and also form. We have been abysmal and look like a team bereft of heart, effort and ideas. Our defence from set pieces is from the Stevie Wonder school of defending and our attacking (attacking ffs?) is non existent.

Our opponents in the derby, or the Red Shite as we call them, are fighting it out with City for top spot.
I know the numbers predictors are pointless, bit of fun you might say, but the form of us and our opponents is so so different that predicting a win against them seems to me to just be wishful thinking and nothing more.

I would 100% love to be wrong but we are woeful with no sign of change and "they" unfortunately are in a different league to us (metaphorically speaking).

As I say I'd love to be wrong and come up with "the" result that unhinged their title challenge but, no matter how hard I try, I just can't see it!

"I don't think we will be relegated or even near the bottom 4 but I understand peoples concern about our form which is the worst in the division bar Huddersfield."

Here's the thing Jay, incredible as it may seem, but since the defeat across the park early December, we are NOT in the bottom 3 of the form table.

Naturally, Huddersfield and Fulham occupy the bottom two places still, then Brighton occupies the 3rd relegation slot with 9 points in the same period.

Leicester are next with the same 11 points as Everton, but with a poorer goal difference. We are TWO places above the relegation zone on this form table.

And - yes! - I'm all too aware that both Leicester and Brighton have beaten us in that time.

Nothing to trumpet about, but it highlights what I keep saying. Too many look at Everton's results and performances in isolation (which are shite), but as hard as it is to believe, there are teams shitier than us!

We will stumble our way to the end of this season. The risk is, we will continue in the same vein next season if we retain Silva?

If we do, then the threat of relegation may well be a justified topic of conversation for next season, but not for this one.

Stan, I don't 'worry' about other teams but you cant follow our team in the Premier League without casting an eye about and taking in, or having an opinion on, those teams around us in the table. After all, we need to finish as far away from those below us in terms of places to get the most Sky cash on offer.

My worry is there seems to be a sense of “It will be alright on the night” attitude in the corridors of power and NSNO seems to be a relic of the past.

I wish I wasn't such a realist!

Benitez has zero respect for our club, why would you want such a man anywhere near us?

Also, if he's so good why is he still the manager Newcastle? I'll tell you why, nobody else wants him, except for half our fan base it would seem.

Silva is learning his trade! The evidence is he has won nothing in this country. Relagated a club, left a club and not spent more than a full season at a club in this country. The biggest joke written on this forum is when people say "Go and get José".

We have employed a manager whom has done very average at previous clubs. If Everton had ambition, they would have got a manager who has won trophies. Gone the extra mile. Pay the 㾶M-a-year contract but we haven't.

We have a manager who is struggling due to lack of experience. Learning his trade, he is and we have employed him. Not his fault – just the risk we have taken.

I don't necessarily think it's optimism, or that someone who disagrees with it shows pessimism, or that you are a realist (whatever that may be).

It is simply a mechanism, one that I believe is useful practically, for maximising the likelihood of achieving desired ends. In this sense, I believe it is rational, ie, consistent with the desired ends. It avoids wasting time focusing on non-useful detail, and instead promotes focus on detail that is likely to be more useful.

I believe it corresponds, in sport, to a 'winning mentality' of the kind that helps separate winners from those who come second. I think Everton need to develop such a mechanism, to minimise the chances of undesired things that are beyond our control unduly affecting things that are within our control.

I could have really tried to convince myself that we would beat Man City last week but we still would have lost. Then I would have been even more gutted as I expected to win.

Whatever I think the result will be will make no difference to the actual result. It goes without saying that I always want us to win but having an often unrealistic expectation will not make it happen.

Now, for the club hierarchy, staff and players, the situation is entirely different. They need to and should, genuinely believe that they will win and they are the only ones with a realistic chance of making it happen. That, in turn, will make the fans believe. I need to see it on the pitch and it is not happening at present but, like always, Evertonians live in perpetual hope, including me!

I am taking it one game at a time.

I understand your frustration at the joke that is bringing in Jose Mourinho although I personally have never mentioned that particular Portuguese name at any stage.

With regard to learning his trade and it not being his fault: we brought him in knowing he has been a total failure wherever he has been – and he himself knowing this also.

He has plenty of experience of doing the same thing, week-in & week-out and getting exactly the same result each and every week.

He is learning fuck-all... So his learning curve must be cut off by, as you rightly said, the people who took the risk.

You cannot teach people who do not listen... or are, in Silva's case, totally inept and out of his depth.

However, what you've mentioned there is 'prediction', 'expectation', what you think will probably happen.

I'm looking at it from a different angle. We don't know what will happen; we never do in reality, but we can influence the chances of a desired outcome happening by altering our mental approach. I believe this is part of what coaches do with sports psychology, and also in other areas.

An example is a tennis player not being phased by being three match-points down, but carrying on playing methodically, which increases the chances of coming back and winning. It's all about altering our chances, nothing more than that.

It's also relevant to professional musicians maintaining their technical focus in front of a big audience, or anyone else in front of a big audience.

I think Everton need to adapt the mental attitude side of things, to maximise their chances of winning each game as it comes.

No doubt Everton get involved in such things, being a Premier League Club, but whatever they do it seems insufficient, in that we seem to have been mentally fragile for some time, heads dropping in the face of adversity.

For us fans, of course we have nothing to do with such techniques, but I believe we can contribute something that parallels them, which is constant support for players, ESPECIALLY when they don't perform well. It makes sense to do so, because it is more likely to help them than doing the reverse of openly criticising them.

It became obvious to me as a young Evertonian in the 60s that criticising players was futile and counter-productive. It also pissed me off, and continues to do so. But now I also KNOW it doesn't work in the professional sense I've indicated.

I think the manager usually helps in this department, Fergie with his hairdryer rants at Utd being the perfect example. In today's game we have Pep with his relentless obsessive talking and encouraging from the line, playing each kick of the match.

Even Klopp, who sometimes looks as though he's lost the plot, has a massive effect on his players – they're brainwashed into playing well.

Which brings us to Silva. What does his demeanour tell us, he looks passive almost depressed when he's on the line. Ranting doesn't always work but his body language says 'loser'.

With us, our players are good but not quite as good as Liverpool's, although we looked comparable in the derby, and indeed our midfield looked far superior. I just think that perhaps we could replicate that level of performance far more often if we developed the 'right' mental attitude.

It's looking increasingly less likely that Silva will achieve it again this season though.

The only player I have ever criticised on here was Lukaku as I thought he was lazy and his attitude stank the place out. I wish I hadnt however as I would have his lazy petulent arse back in a heartbeat because we need his goals!

He's lost a lot of the fan-base Silva, especially because of the zonal marking, but I've also seen enough to give him a bit longer.

He's got to change this, he's made us more compact in the last couple of games, which was my other big gripe, and with over two weeks on the training ground before another game, it won't take us long to see if he can finally start getting his message across to the players, some of whom seem frightened to death, especially when they play at Goodison.

"Our players are good but not as good as Liverpool's" — Classic understatement. Their players are light years ahead of ours right throughout the side. Only one league loss all season says it all... 2nd in the Premier League on goal difference and a game in hand.

Our players don't even look like they've got a goal in them never— mind a win! Not one single player of ours would get in their side... and God how that pains me to say that.

Where is the crisis? (Not my thinking but that of Moshirei and Brands!)

Many clubs in the same position as us buy, buy, buy, all perhaps good players but also really bad but never get those players to click. Klopp has done it at Liverpool and United's manager to an extent. Kendall did it spectacularly first time around.

Some managers manage to unclick sides that had previously clicked like Chelsea perhaps. Some clubs like City can afford to buy such good players that getting them to click isn't so difficult. I say this because earlier in the season we clicked and for a while the sky seemed the limit. Then we crashed and this must cause Silva sleepless nights. Same players who clicked are now rubbish, what can he do?

I don't believe that given our bloated and overpaid squad and the myriad of genuine talent coming from the academy that we don't have the right quality of players to become a top side (remember Leicester?) with the right coach.

My current feeling is that while Silva has to be given more time the likelihood is that he isn't the one to click us to a higher level. We can churn players in and out as much as we want but that won't do it.

What a gem to miss Pochettino was; how about Paul Scholes?

Look back to the Euro 96 semi final. Two evenly matched teams, one (England) on a roll playing at home in a fantastic atmosphere (I've never seen one like it at Wembley). England score in the first minute and Wembley shook.

Watching the Germans methodically doing the right things consistently against all the odds was one of the best lessons in mental strength and character I've ever seen.

They rode their luck and got their win. Afterwards, Klinsmann said they he looked at the England players and felt that 'they didn't actually believe they could beat us.'

That's the mentality I'd like us to have. We had it for three years in the mid-80s, we had it fleetingly in 94-95.

I think we have some good players. They need shaping into a coherent team. More importantly, they need some help with their mental resilience. Someone at the club needs to be big enough to recognise this and act on it.