Recently by Terry Smith

Listening to Sir Clive Woodward today on Radio Four's Desert Island Discs, I was struck by how fate can change history and how 'great' managers or coaches can depend on literally the toe of a player's boot. In 2003, with barely 26 seconds to go of extra time, Jonny Wilkinson's drop goal was the difference between Australia and England, the difference between glory and another hard luck story: Woodward the Wonder instead of Woodward the Wally.

Pan forward 7 years to a cold night in February at Goodison Park. Another young England star, casually back passes with disastrous effects: a penalty is awarded, a key defender dismissed and ineligible for the vital second leg and the momentum handed to a side low on confidence. The whole Europa venture crashed at that moment, and yet it will be the manager who is scrutinised rather than the players. Forced to play a semi-injured Senderos and the fragile Yobo, Moyes' tired midfield of Osman and Piennar could not help Arteta to create anything of note and the lacklustre Donovan and Saha looked pale imitations of the stars of the last month.

Did we under-estimate Sporting's undoubted ability? We do it every time in Europe. Did we believe the usual pre-match hype from Phil Neville? That sells papers and creates mirages. Should Moyes have left a tired Saha on the bench and made Yakubu and Anichebe earn their wages for a change? Maybe, but hoping for a bit of King Louis magic was a gamble worth taking (as was using Jags who showed more control in 10 minutes than the other two did all game).

But the facts will be recorded as going 2 goals up and being well beaten by another Lisbon lot. That makes a grand total of an unlucky 12 goals against and 2 goals against Portuguese teams this year. (I lied about the 'unlucky' bit!).

From Moyes the maestro to Moyes the misery in just 6 days, the fine line between heroes and zeroes, from hype to tripe, has been determined by the misplaced kick of young pup's boot.

One of the songs Sir Clive used to inspire his 2003 heroes was Eminem's "Lose Yourself". Maybe Moyes should have played this at half-time. The words might have struck a chord:

"Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted-One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?"

Mind you that might have been tempting fate as that is exactly what we do every time: lose OURSELVES! We lose it in the newspapers before a ball's even kicked and this time we lost it before we came off the pitch at Goodison.

Oooops there goes gravity............Back to reality!

1. Moyes tactics spot on from start to finish:

Learning from his mistakes in containing and showing 'respect' to the Big Three
Donovan stretching the ageing Neville
Bilyaletdinov cutting in from the right (useless from the left)
5 men across the middle
Johnny back and Yobo out
Substitutes at the right time
Pressing from the start right to the end

2. Players coming back to form

Osman: providing a real cutting edge and giving us more momentum in midfield, tackling better than any midfielder and skill is back.
Arteta: has been allowed to regain match fitness in big games without causing us too much damage.
Rodwell: reprieved and relieved with "Gerrard" goal.
Bilyaletdinov: undoubted ability needs to be allowed to grow into the team now. Heitinga: could he be the Number 1 Number 5?

3. Timing

The claim that "February could make or break our season" could have haunted David Moyes. Now, with the impetus of players returning and the confidence of knowing we can match the best, the task on Thursday doesn't seem so difficult, providing we stick to what we're good at: high tempo, right down the throat playing on the front foot with the confidence to spread it around.

We seem to have a harder time against the smaller teams - Hull away, Birmingham at home and a couple of poor games against the other lot - so let's hope Sporting Lisbon (who are not as good as Everton by any stretch of the imagination) don't poor water on what could be a great March.

If I was Moyes, I'd give the Yak and Vaughan a chance to restate their claim for a place and hope they do what Ossie has done - not been nervous of those ahead of him but made it difficult for Moyes to drop him. Or will Big Vic be allowed his chance for forgiveness by throwing him on for 20 minutes?

By the way, Liverpool might turn their nose up at the Europa League, but we should make sure we don't waste a great opportunity for more fantastic European nights. This could be the start not the finish!

The biggest danger we are in at the moment is believing our own publicity. We are all told that Tim Cahill has travelled 10,000 miles to play at Everton. Well it certainly showed last night - he looked mentally and physically shattered. Captain? Midfield player? I don't think so.
A semi-buzz went round the ground that Jo was coming on. So what? How many times did he fall over? How many times did he face their goal?
Again, Fellaini flatters to deceive. He looked competent in the first half but his only deceptive qualities are that he is slower than you think.
And the callers on the way home who couldn't wait for "our backbone" Phil Neville to return are as deluded as those thinking we weren't turned over by a team playing football the old Everton way. If Baines, Rodwell, Howard and the foot of the post hadn't been there, we'd have suffered another 5-0 defeat. Imagine if this had been a knock out match!!!!!!

But for me the shameful part of the night wasn't Bilyaletdinov's (Diniyar know what yer doin' lad?) appalling lack of common sense in passing (????!!!) up a great free kick opportunity right on the edge of the box, or the sight of Leighton Baines running the full width of the pitch in order to stop Tony Hibbert taking a free kick. No, it was at half-time. The idiot who is in charge of half-time announcements had to fade out a heart-felt appeal for Madeleine McCann because he hadn't the sense to work out the timings. I would have been distraught to hear the words suddenly disappear and the images quickly replaced by the half-time scores. It sounds a petty comment to make, but I thought it spoke volumes: we believe our own worthless publicity and can't even put across a message that has some merit.

Our Tetta's latest set back: Boo Hoo!!!
Our Raffa's latest gaff : Woo Hoo!!!!

Great night's entertainment. If you could have planned it better, well only the Kings of Leon singing in the centre circle would have topped it: Playing really well, score an unbelievable screamer like days of old in the last few minutes. We all looked fools........... then enter Raffa the Gaffer, Super Spanish Waiter................. "What do I do Sammy? We look as if the game is won. Should we play to the final whistle? No, I take El Torres off........ It always works. Que?"

Pan to screaming little red beach ball Sammy.: "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! I can just see those ******* Mancs and Evertonians putting more beer in the fridge".

Pan to Raffa: "Por favore Sammy, I've done it again. Que? Dohhhhhhhhhh!!!"

Priceless!

* Go on, use Latin Translator on Google. It's dead easy!

One thing our latest predicament suggests is the bleedin' obvious: play your best players in your best formation and do it consistently. So, if we had all our squad available, and YOU had to pick a team for the Europa Cup Final and work backwards to, say, Sunday 29th November, who would you leave out of the starting line up?

• Does Cahill represent a great midfield play maker or the best header of a ball on the odd occasion with a tendency to collide with opponents for no obvious advantage to the team?
• Would you admit that Felliani was a last gasp, face-saving panic buy fast becoming the new Mickey Walsh? He looked great on TV but was a complete waste of money for Everton (mind you, he went on to score 42 in 75 for Porto!).
• Is Jo ever going to be prolific or just a really likeable headless chicken?
• Would you really say Phil Neville is as vital as the good Sir Phil makes out? He's a great example of professionalism but would he get into your first 11?
• And poor old Tony Hibbert. We love him but .......

It was a case of "the Cup's half full" at Goodison as the night was right to let us forget the day job: getting back up the table. On a strange evening where Uefa looked to the future, I found myself wandering back to the past. Moyesy joins Harry the Cat on 11 European wins and for all the furore over the extra eyes on the sidelines, it was getting back to basics which was the best sight of the night. For a brief moment in time, we played with three forwards and Billy Molotov became Davey Thomas and did what he used to do consistently: fire in a ball at speed and with devastating accuracy. And before we get carried away - yes their defence looked like ours against Arsenal and the goalie was a bit of a Dracula when it came to crosses - Bilyaletdinov at least did the simple things well: making the right decision to pass short or long and not running around like a headless chicken trying to impress.

In the brand-saturated consumer world we live in, we can not escape the market. Nike tell us to "Just Do It", L'Oreal assure us that it's "Because You're Worth It" and even good old Blue Boss Terry at Tesco's tells us that "Every Little Helps". Everyone must jostle for position, build relationships, encourage support and foster life long customer loyalty. And so it is with football. Buying the shirt, wearing the colours, kissing the badge are all expressions of brand loyalty.

Global brands like Real Madrid, Manchester United and even Norway's favourite from up the road all command a world-wide presence and recognition. And if it sometimes looks odd to see thousands of Koreans, Chinese or even Norwegians screaming support for lads from Huyton and Bootle, well just look at the TV you're watching, the car you drive or even the computer you're reading this on. Yes, our loyalty can be bought by anyone, anywhere, anyhow.

If yer 'no' yer histery, Everton were once Man City. As a kid, I remember weeks after we'd won the FA Cup making a card board cut-out (almost life size!) of Alan Ball from an Echo "special pull-out" in 1966 and being absolutely ecstatic that we had stolen THE best player in the FINAL for £110,000. God, were we rich?!! And as we watched a ginger gem lift Rimet's reward and the hearts of a nation, our Ken's timely prophetic summation of England's win must have rang hollow through the archaic arcades of Blackpool: "Some people are on the pitch. They think it's all over. It IS now!" As the catalogue 'ker-ching' of cash registered another sale, from Littlewoods grew the mighty oaks of the Holy Trinity and the poor sick Seasiders watched their hopes of glory plummet like the stomach-churnng drop of the Big One and quickly fade like the last lick of funfair candyfloss. In a pre-Premiership pantomine, the Blues went to the Ball and Blackpool played Cinders. The deal was brokered and hearts were broken. History was made and the future was not orange: it was blue.