If you're under 68...

Given the above, I'm expecting a more comfortable, mid-table finish next year and, for once, a more positive pre-season than of late. Is that too much to ask?

It's money and huge money at that. Moshiri has never had it and his shady friend who might have it is a pariah consigned to history.

We are effectively back to Kenwright economics so presumably the best we can hope for is a return to mid-Moyes mediocrity.

Think I've just made myself sick.

A lot has been said, but you draw out the important part that Jordan Pickford played. The Chelsea saves were unbelievable but there were others in the run-in.

I said at the time, I don't think I was able to breath during that entire sequence of play.

I was also impressed with the improvement in Iwobi and think that Mykolenko has settled in well.

Thanks for reminding me what a knife-edge we were on for the last 6 or 7 games, just when I thought it was safe to come out from behind the couch!

But that's all behind me now. Looking forward to the new dawn. Positive mental attitude, faith in our manager and owner. After all, it can't be as bad as last season… can it?

Wait, what am I saying?? I'm depressed again now.

COYB!

As recent events unfolded, I just kept thinking that it would be such a blow to me personally if Everton were relegated in my lifetime! Three times, I have almost suffered that fate and I fear, if there is a next time, it will be the one that does for me.

My son-in-law is a lifelong Gunner with a season ticket. I live in Rushden, Northants and so any time his mate is away, Mal phones me up to have his seat at The Emirates.

His friend has been away in the USA and Mal was going to offer me the seat for the last game of the season until my daughter stepped in. She told him firmly not to offer me the ticket unless the Blues were safe as she genuinely feared for my health on that last Sunday.

Well, I went and, being well away from the Everton section, just loved the day for the explosion of colour and noise that greeted the stunned Gunneries when Man City scored the third and destined the Gobshites to Premier League gloom!

He freely admitted that he was crying like a baby at the end. Mind you, my late dad, his elder brother, always maintained that his tear-ducts were too close to his bladder…

Thank God they had the wherewithal to scrape together the necessary points and avoid the drop.

Many faults puts us in that poor position and many things got us out but that has to be the final wake up call after several seasons of poor managers and signings.

If Lampard can solidify the defensive side of things then that will be half the battle and then they can work on the offense.

Goals win games but schoolboy defending will lose them and that happened far too often with points being thrown away.

Her's hoping the bad taste of last season can quickly become a distant memory.

I was sure we would be going down for the first time in my over 60 years of lifetime, a very sad prospect for me and those I have brought up to be Evertonians.

It was close, but we didn't and I thank the players, Lampard and the fans that didn't allow it too happen.

For me the alarm siren was losing at home to Watford 2 - 5. A new manager should have been found right then, but the club didn't react quickly enough. Then the club was late appointing Lampard only hours before the end of the January transfer window.

Like many I hope Farhad really has learnt lessons, but cynic in me says that letter just flannel, unless I see Boardroom changes. It's really with Lampard and Thelwell now with no money to avoid a repeat next season, I wish them luck and give them support.

And consider the sheer unlikeliness of so many of the occurrences you describe. If you'd told people back in December that Iwobi would become a Goodison hero, that the fans would begging for Delph to play more, that our foundational left back would be replaced by an unknown Eastern European kid who'd be better, and that the Blue faithful would be inspired by Frank effing Lampard of all people, they'd have locked you away in the looney bin.

And though I can relate to the atmosphere as I was a supporter and season ticket holder from 1954 to 1976, the emotions may be similar, but there is no way you can experience anything around the ground or inside the ground on TV.

When I come back home (funny – I have been living in Canada for 46 years and I still call Liverpool 'home'), I always come in the football season. The difference I find in games live compared to TV is you can see more of the off-the-ball movements.

It is writing like yours, Peter, that gives you better reality of the games and the lead up to them and makes me proud to be an Evertonian.

I truly hope this can be a new start, that Lampard can take the loaded automatic weapons away from the toddlers in the boardroom and an actual adult can take charge.

Since Moyes left, the scope of my ambition has been for a manager who isn't an idiot narcissist to take the reigns.
COYB

Lampard reminds me of Bobby Robson during his England reign. In Mexico, injuries forced his hand and it clicked.

I am far from confident for the coming season. I think Frank was making selections as baffling as Benitez. His subs were usually too late and like-for-like.

Hopefully a few new faces and a few out the door will give him a wider palette. We need to find goals from somewhere.

I felt the energy and drive from Richarlison got us over the line. And yes, certainly Spurs would want him. Kane is a striker; Richarlison would be on the left.

I had high hopes of him when he first came into the team and still hope he might fulfill them. And thanks for the compliments on here too - much appreciated. Stu, sorry! Hope you've recovered again.

I reckon one day soon, that the events of the last 3 months of last season, could contrive to be a mini-series, or one-off TV programme such is the magnitude of the potential relegation of Everton last season. You inquest events and never has a club's supporters done so much to drive their team to believe and inspiration, the will to win on the pitch.

Hopefully never again, 3 times in less than 30 years is too often.

Time to be build stability and hopefully the dawn of a new era, lessons learned and better tines for Evertonians.

Our time will come, and let's believe, as after last season's great escape, it hopefully will get better.

In fact, I doubt very much that there are many TW contributors who do remember the last time Spurs won the Football League Championship!!

Spurs, a big club...? — Don't make me laugh!!

Big club? Like Newcastle. It's self-proclaimed and Sky fuelled.

Newcastle a big club........ Hilarious!!

I remember a couple of Liverpudlians asking me at the start of April, Did I think Everton would go down? I answered honestly saying I didn't really know, but continued by saying that I wasn't giving up hope, simply because of Goodison Park.

Looking back now, and thinking I've seen most things, but nothing can compare to the way our younger generation galvanized the whole club, and this is something I will be forever grateful for.

A scary, but beautiful memory, four weeks ago around this time: Michael Keane briefly turned into Dennis Bergkamp, and when Dominic Calvert-Lewin's goal produced the greatest sea of emotion witnessed since Andy Gray scored our third against Bayern Munich (I wasn't at the Wimbledon game), there are no other words!

However you are correct they had won the league in 1951 after winning the second division the previous year but those two titles were many years ago and although they have won a lot of cups it’s been an awful long time since they won the league.

The Spurs push-and-run title winners were before my time but did our '60s team, especially '67 onwards, play the same way? The one-touch Alan Ball type?

Keeping with the '68 thing... in the manner of The Scaffold:
"Thank U very much for Pickford's goalposts, thank very much, thank u very, very, very much..."

They divine succour from such published posts.

They need to be got rid of.

We're in terminal decline with the present "leadership" from the boardroom and, from the 5% of his time he can be bothered with looking after Everton, our ludicrous owner.

Next season? 15th at best. Those in charge have royally fucked us, as everyone without Goodison Park sees.

They've placed us spread-eagled over a barrel folks - so get used to being rodgered next season, at least.

The push and run style was based on the way football was played on the streets of England using the walls and kerbs of the street as an extra man, there was some of this style used by manager Bill Nicholson in the 1961 team.

I’d say there were elements of this way of playing football by Everton with the late sixties and 1970 winning title holders, non stop exciting football like on the football street game, end to end with the first team to score twenty the winners and everyone playing ENJOYING the game, going to bed tired and getting up the next day looking forward to the next game, none of this endless bleedin’ passing back lark.

Rant over Brian but I bet you and all your mates enjoyed playing those football games growing up and learning your skills at the same time.

And in the '50s they were only paid 20 quid a week. Then things changed in the 1990s – the Premier League arrived, together with Sky Sport and vastly inflated player salaries and transfer fees. Since that time, I have mainly watched games on TV and it's hard to believe how the playing standard has fallen so much, especially on the salaries they are collecting.

I am convinced that given the same conditions re footwear and footballs, any team us oldies picked from the 1950s era would hammer any present day team. That Harry Kane, for instance, wouldn't have a chance against Jackie Charlton. What upsets me is that I just don't see any signs of future improvement.

Have a go at me if you like – I'm in me 'ole with me tin helmet on!