Recently by Mark O'Brien

IT'S A sign of how many players have returned from injury at Everton that David Moyes is now allowing some of his youngsters to go out on loan.

James Vaughan made his debut on loan to Leicester City at the weekend in his latest bid to get his career back on track, and there is talk of right-back Seamus Coleman having a spell at Blackpool in order to get some first-team experience.

There's been a bit of a clamour from supporters to see more of Coleman since a couple of barnstorming cameos as substitute that turned awkward games against Tottenham and Carlisle United in the Blues' favour.

WITH Leighton Baines making his England debut last night, at least it's been a decent week for one Evertonian.

As for the rest, well, such is football, the highs of the Chelsea and Manchester United results have faded as quickly as they in turn expunged the pain of the ten-man derby.

To all intents and purposes, Everton's season finished the moment that Sporting scored their first goal in Portugal.

EARLIER this season, who would have envisioned Everton kicking themselves for only taking one point from The Emirates?

Not only that, but who foresaw David Moyes's team coping almost effortlessly without their Nigerian contingent?

Hardly anyone has menioned the loss of Joseph Yobo and Ayegbeni Yakubu to the African Cup of Nations - although it doesn't actually look like it's going to last too much longer judging by their performance against Egypt at Tuesday teatime.

THE 'dead rubber' is something of a novel concept at Goodison, which unfortunately is just an indication of how little European football we've played for a club of our stature.

Still, tonight's final group game against BATE promises to be a muted experience, especially as it's combined with that other European quirk, the alcohol ban.

The whole evening promises to be a throwback to the heady days of the Simod, Full Members and Zenith Data System Cups, with the tiny crowd only kept awake by the voices of the players on the pitch.

JACK RODWELL has made some noises about Everton avenging their heaviest-ever European defeat, and Phil Neville believes that Benfica are in for a bit of a rude awakening at Goodison tonight, but in all honesty this Europa League game doesn't really seem to have captured the fans' imagination as much as it might.

Perhaps it's the very fact that even if the Portuguese triumph over David Moyes's team again, there are still another six points up for grabs in Athens and at home to BATE; so qualification to the next stage is well within Everton's grasp, regardless of the outcome this evening.

It's also difficult to work up any animosity towards Benfica, even after they stuck five goals past Tim Howard in the Stadium of Light. The fact of the matter is they couldn't help themselves.

THREE games in six days.

Ten goals conceded in three games. No win in five matches.

Fourteenth place in the league. Out of one cup.

They are pretty damning statistics, and the only real mitigating number is 11: which represents the amount of senior players unavailable to David Moyes during a week where a season that's been waiting to kick into life has instead ground to a shuddering halt.

NORMALLY we bemoan the seemingly endless international breaks that disrupt the start of every season and prevent everyone, players and supporters, from getting into their groove properly.

No rhythm or pattern develops and it's hard to work out how good new signings look or get any indication of how the season is going to pan out when the games come along in awkward clumps.

However, in this instance, with Everton suffering so many injuries, the two-week hiatus looks like it might have been a Godsend.

IF it wasn't for the fact that the bad weather kept the numbers down, and also that none of the Manchester United supporters probably had a clue who he was, Jose Baxter might have expected a degree of barracking from the away contingent at Widnes on Tuesday night.

After being bailed that morning following an arrest on charges concerning drugs and forged money, a more high-profile player would have at least faced the odd taunt or zany chant.

NORMALLY around this time of year we implore David Moyes to field his strongest side in the Carling Cup, what with it representing a great chance to win some silverware and all the rest of it.

However, with the guaranteed games in the Europa League this year, and crucial points to be won in the Premier League at the weekend, all but the most traditional 'play your strongest side at all times' advocates will cut the Everton manager some slack if he tries to rest a few players for the trip to the KC Stadium tonight for a tie that is as underwhelming as it's possible to get at this stage of the competition - at least since Middlesborough were relegated anyway.

LAST month, the decent results against the hapless Sigma Olomouc acted as a salve, easing the pain of the raw results inflicted by both Arsenal and Burnley.

So following another dreadful domestic performance, this time at Craven Cottage, Evertonians are hoping that Europe can once again provide some light relief in what's been a rather grim week.

AEK Athens promise to be more formidable than the men from the Czech Republic, and given Everton's present problems the Greeks must be quietly confident of emulating their countrymen, Panathinaikos, who infamously upset Harry Catterick's team by dumping them out of the European Cup in 1971.