It is true that Everton had the better of the first half but I don’t consider that they created a single chance worthy of a mention in that half. The goal came from a foul by Yakubu on Toure, pushing him into the ball, so that he conceded a corner.(Note that later Bendtner was booked for similarly pushing Yobo when he was shepherding the ball out). Everton created nothing from the corner; it was Bendtner who set it up for Cahill/Yakubu to bundle it over the line – so much for Moyes claiming that it was Everton working their chances through good football!

The only other chances Everton created in that half were a long range blast by Neville into the roof of the stand (not what I would really call a chance) and a monster dive by Yakubu, in a brazen attempt to con the referee into giving him a penalty.

In the second half, Everton created one good chance, an unmarked header from Yakubu but nothing else at all.

Given Everton’s tactic of flooding the midfield and making the game physical, our strategy of bypassing their midfield was always going to be effective and so it proved.

Moyes claimed his team played the best football but in the second half, they defended like a pub team and throughout the game, they really only created one or two chances.

You need only look back to our season last year, to remember a team who played a lot of pretty passing manouvres in the middle third but struggled to convert them into goals. As a consequence, we drew a lot of games we should have won and even lost a number too. That’s where Everton are but I wouldn’t get excited about the prospect of Moyes moving them on the next step.

This year, Everton have played 5 games against the big four and have gained 1 point from 15.