Where to start?  Okay, we were blessed to escape with “only” a 2-1 defeat in the Derby – as Liverpool showed the qualities you would normally associate with ourselves.  Irony eh?  They had the hunger, the fight, and the sheer will to win every ball no matter what.  Ourselves, on the other hand, resorted to playing a Liverpool style long ball game, which got us nowhere. 

We were on the back foot from the off as Liverpool came charging out of the blocks, determined to bridge further that gap that has existed between the Mersey Haves and the Mersey Have-Nots all season long.  Through gritted teeth we must accept that they deserved their win on the day.

David Moyes now has two weeks to lick his wounds, recharge the battery and come back as fresh as one can be after a fortnight without a chance to make amends for the mistakes made during the Anfield defeat.  No doubt he called it wrong on the day – although matters were not helped with the absence of Mikel Arteta further reducing any prospect for a spark of creativity in a very ordinary Everton midfield.  Joseph Yobo is not a midfielder – never has, never will be.  I hope that option is now finally binned – it hasn’t worked at any time this season. 

Kevin Kilbane looked goosed (again) and running on empty.  I’m sensing the appreciative Goodison audience is becoming increasingly tired of seeing Mr Kilbane not performing to the standards of last season.  I simply think the guy needs a break – one we simply cannot afford to give him.  Okay, some might say that professional footballers should be well able to cope with the demands of the modern game but Kilbane has been playing week in week out for a very long time now, carrying the occasional knock.  His game has always been built upon an excellent work ethic and fitness. 

In the past season or so, Kilbane has become a victim of his own success – particularly with the reluctance of his international manager, Brian Kerr, to rest him for friendly international fixtures.  Injured or not, I wish David Moyes had’ve taken a leave out of Taggart’s book at Manchester United and withdrawn his services – he has needed a break for some time now and hasn’t had it. Unfortunately, David Moyes does not have that luxury of choice, as manager of Everton FC, due to the lack of bodies left in the first team squad.  Kilbane needs to find his form of old and quickly. 

Mr Beattie, if he is to do anything in a Royal Blue shirt, needs a firing-on-all-cylinders Kevin Kilbane whipping quality balls into areas where Beattie can do something to rectify his poor start at the Club.  Defensively, it was one of those days when players looked their age.  Poor Alan Stubbs and David Weir had days they’d rather forget.  Stubbs has proven a lot of people wrong this season, myself included, with his level of performance.  He has been a rock.  Weir, however, continues to worry me.  He gets away with murder at times – must be that innocent look on his face which cuts him some slack with normally overzealous officials!  The pair of them were pulled apart yesterday, with ease.  Thanks, Davey — and off you go home this summer…

So, less than two months now until the end of season and we can now focus on an eight-game run-in with a bonus four-point handicap advantage on our chasing rivals.  Before a ball was kicked over the weekend, I felt we couldn’t totally eliminate either Charlton Athletic or Middlesbrough from the equation but thanks to their respective defeats at home to teams fighting for Premiership survival, that has put an end to any visions of Champions League football at their grounds next season – leaving three teams fighting for one place. 

Now, if you were to say back in August that, with eight games to go, we’d lie four points ahead of Liverpool and five ahead of Bolton Wanderers I’d be inclined to quietly contact the local madhouse and have you committed.  However, the reality is that we are where we are – AND ON MERIT!  It has pissed me off no end to hear those fuckwits in the national media all hounding Everton FC for “the style of play” and finding that the prospect of Everton FC representing England in next season’s Champions League to be appalling.  Have they not observed the shite being played consistently this season by our rivals for fourth spot? 

Liverpool, for all their pedigree (ahem) in Europe, were well beaten by the not so mighty Burnley!  They have also lost over one third of their fixtures in this season’s Premiership (so far!).  Do THEY have a divine right to CL football then or what?  For fucks sake, if Everton do indeed finish in fourth place then it’s deservedly so.  The League table, so we’re told, does not lie.  The Champions win it; the worst teams get relegated and the team that finishes in fourth – well, they’re the fourth best team in the Land!  Except, of course, when it’s possibly going to be shitty little cash-strapped Everton FC. 

If I had my way, I’d allow those G14 clubs to take their ball and fuck off right now this minute to their European plaything and leave the rest of us to carry on carrying on!  They’d soon enough become bored with their new format footy – faraway hills ain’t always greener.  The money’s in European club football – fair enough – but the very heartbeat of the game remains with tribal / parochial battles (as evidently seen at Anfield), bragging rights won and lost, the best team being crowned Champions of the Land etc. 

In the modern game, clubs like ourselves (cast as the shit on their G14 shoes) have little or no chance of gaining parity with the so-called big boys of European football.  The chairman of our Club can continually spout bollocks about having investment coming in sometime soon in the next millennium, to finally give his manager something he’s not truly had since arriving at Goodison Park three years ago.  I still suspect he’s desperately hanging on to the dream of Everton dipping the toes in the river of income provided by CL “membership”.  That, in my book, does not constitute investment, as invariably mentioned over recent seasons.  Anyway, that’s a different debate for another time perhaps…

In the meantime, if Sunday is anything to go by, we appear to be trying our very best to protect something we do not yet own – precisely, that fourth place spot.  Back to basics and quickly lads… West Brom away will not be the picnic in the sunshine (three points already guaranteed) that most have been predicting for weeks now.  Maybe it’s just an unhealthy dosage of Evertonian paranoia but I do fear the very real prospect of seeing Kevin Campbell putting a massive dent in our dreams of Champions League football.  It goes without saying that I hope this doesn’t come to pass! 

West Brom away has now been marked as a must-win game.  It’s funny how many twists and turns a season can take – just a week or so ago there was a possibility that we could go into the West Brom game trailing Liverpool, which would’ve added to the growing pressures being placed on this Everton side.  Instead, Blackburn Rovers duly obliged with their “attrition” at Anfield and Liverpool allowed yet another chance to claw lost ground pass them by.  With Liverpool facing Bolton Wanderers the day before we now play West Brom – well, I feel we’ve gained (just!) a slight advantage. 

I appreciate that it’s stating the bleedin’ obvious (as we really need three points regardless!) but knowing the outcome of that game at Anfield will play on the minds of Moyes and his team.  Should Liverpool and Bolton play out a draw then we would have a chance to turn a three-point advantage into a six-point advantage.  Wishful thinking perhaps but that’s the way it is (conveniently obliterating any memories already of the glorious missed opportunities when in a similar position the other week against Blackburn Rovers). 

If (and isn’t that a massive word at this time of season?!) we can somehow gain maximum points from our two upcoming battles – which they most certainly will be – against relegation threatened West Brom and Crystal Palace then the squeeze is firmly on both Liverpool and Bolton.  Thanks to a horse race being held the previous day at Aintree, our fixture against Crystal Palace will also take place twenty four hours after Liverpool and Bolton play their own games (away to Manchester City and home to Fulham respectively) so we’ll once again have the advantage of knowing where we stand before a ball is kicked.  It’s not much of an advantage but we’ll take whatever we can in our fight to remain in that fourth place spot.

We shall not be moved?