I was also at the United game, and it was a great atmosphere. Vidic simply couldn't handle Fellaini that night, he was immense.

With only 4 games to go we were still in with an outside chance of a Top 4 place, as it was a good, consistent season with only February (?) costing us genuine points as we didn't win a game.

Even with all that, I was still glad Moyes left as I'd accepted that is all we would ever be under him... The Best of the Rest, as they used to call us. It had all become so predictable and stale, imo, that even a good season wasn't enough to convince me that we'd make a breakthrough under him. The Quarter-Final against Wigan was simply devastating.

Little did we know a Billionaire was around the corner!!

Moyes had been in charge 11 years then – the optimism of his early years had been replaced by a pragmatism that hyper-economics were now ruling the game – without ludicrous funds available, where could Everton really go?

Funnily enough, David, this happened just the season before (2010-11), when Fulham (8th) got in via the Fair Play table (thankfully, Uefa stopped that nonsense in 2016), Stoke (13th) lost the FA Cup Final to Champions Man Utd, and Birmingham City (18th) won the League Cup.

The sides that missed out on Europe? Liverpool (6th) and Everton (7th).

I'm getting bitter. I'll stop there.

I think the next near miss was the Martinez first season. If I am not mistaken, any other season, that points tally would normally have qualified us for the Champions League.

What could have been.