Everton 2, Hull 0: No fear for Merseyside derbies despite missing Marouane Fellaini

Typical. See the funny side, shrug your shoulders and move on. And that is exactly how Everton have dealt with every challenge this season - and why it is now looking so promising.

Why they have managed to hit on a winning formula despite having no fit strikers.

Why, since the alarming surrender to Wigan in November, they have kept clean sheets in seven of the subsequent eight games.

And why, although they will be going to Anfield without Fellaini, they will be going without fear as well.

"We don't cry about things we can't do anything about," Jagielka added. "We get on with it, just as we have in recent weeks, when all our strikers have been out."

Saturday's victory gave a clear indication of why a third successive top-six position is there for the taking.

Phil Brown might have complained that a failure to spot Fellaini in an offside position contributed to their downfall because the first goal was vital to the pattern of the game.

But what the Hull manager should recognise is that his side were never going to get it, and the fact that they had previously scored in every away game of their first campaign in the top flight is testament to the solidity of Everton's defence.

No wonder Jagielka was in such buoyant mood after the game. Saturday was the sixth successive afternoon he has finished with a clean sheet in the bag - as, you suspect, he will with the club's player of the season awards whatever happens between now and May.

And at the other end, the inspiration needed to provide the decisive goals is in full flow too, thanks mainly to Mikel Arteta's overdue emergence. His two goals in the last league game at home to Sunderland came from free-kicks and he thrilled the Gwladys Street End again on Saturday with a 30-yard thunderbolt.

The fact that it came just seconds before half-time must have irked Brown, but there was no way he would have contemplated making his players stay on the pitch for one of his open-air team talks on this occasion - there was nothing anyone could have done about such a stunning strike.

But that should have made Brown realise how futile his post-match complaints were. Quite simply, Arteta scored because he had a shot at goal - something Hull failed to manage all afternoon.

Yes, some of Martin Atkinson's bookings were a bit petty, but surely Brown can't complain that he was biased. Why else would David Moyes's assistant Steve Round join him in the queue outside the official's door after the game?

Atkinson actually got the backing of Rafael Benitez during his tirade against Alex Ferguson on Saturday, and the Liverpool manager won't have been too displeased by his zero tolerance approach to Fellaini's careless but ultimately harmless high foot on Sam Ricketts less than two minutes into the second half.

In the Belgian's first interview after he became Everton's record signing he expressed his hope that referees in England would be more lenient to his style of play than they were in his homeland.

Becoming the first player to get into double figures in the yellow card count suggests his pleas fell on deaf ears and you can understand why Moyes didn't risk him at Macclesfield.

The pursuit of three Premier League points presented the manager with a very different dilemma at the weekend, however, and perhaps left him in a bit of a no-win situation where Fellaini was concerned.

As terrible as Hull were, 2-0 is just not a comfortable enough lead to disrupt the system that had established it. Being wise after the event, City were so inept that Fellaini could have been replaced by Andy van der Meyde at the break and no-one would have questioned that as a gamble.

But as Arsenal and Liverpool have already surrendered five points to them on their own grounds this season, their ability to launch a comeback could not be under-estimated and half-time changes were not on the agenda.

Subsequent events have taken a bit of the gloss off the victory as Fellaini, who proved the value of his knack of getting on the end of crosses with the glancing header that opened the scoring, would have no doubt been fired up for another crack at Liverpool following the Champions League exit he suffered at their hands with Standard Liege earlier in the campaign.

And from Moyes's point of view, he now has to contemplate the horror of playing a centre-forward in his line-up.

The first time he was shorn of all his strikers, at Manchester City last month, it seemed that he had lurched into an injury crisis even his players' powers of versatility would struggle to overcome.

But they won that game, as they have every other since, apart from the draw with Chelsea. All without conceding a goal.

Indeed, having no strikers has transformed Everton to the point that Moyes, even with a fit one, left him on the bench. That's no disrespect to Victor Anichebe. It's just that even he has to concede that the way the players have pulled together and turned this adverse situation to their advantage has revived the ambitions for this campaign.

All the evidence was there on Saturday. Phil Neville again thrived in a central midfield role, with Tony Hibbert effortlessly shrugging off his injury problems at right-back - Everton have yet to concede a goal since he returned.

On the opposite flank even better news. Leighton Baines has taken full advantage of Joseph Yobo's absence and his cross for the opening goal was the kind of touch Moyes will be hesitant to be without when the Nigerian is back in contention.

The bench, of course, couldn't be more fragile if it was infested with woodworm. But in terms of the starting 11 he sends out these days, there's no reason to believe Everton can't compensate for the loss of another vital component as they work towards two punishing shifts on the other side of Stanley Park.

Talking of local rivalry, Nick Barmby's first return to Goodison since switching to Liverpool eight years ago provided further evidence of how the mood has considerably lifted as the season has gone on.

If he had come back in August you'd have struggled to make out the abuse the 34-year-old was being subjected to, buried as it would have been amongst the many howls of derision ringing round the ground in those depressing late summer days.

On Saturday however, the boos rang out as loud and clear as the message Everton are sending out to anyone who doubts their ability to shrug off another setback.