Everton crash out...

I'm not gonna go into detail, that's what the evertonfc.com blueboard is for (well, for ranting mainly). But I will paste perceptive half-time blather from Guardian writer Tom Bryant, quoting a couple of Everton fans:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peep, peep: That's it for the first half. It may well be it for Everton as well.

A half-time email: "Re: Gary Naylor's tactical email. Fair point about that 4-1-3-1-1, except that the thing that made it work so well the past few years - a stout bald Irishman - is no longer available. Problems with Howard and the back four this season aside, not nearly enough attention is paid to how much we miss Lee Carsley," says Ryan Jones all the way from USA! USA! USA!

MBM regular and Everton fan Gary Naylor is beginning to get into that kind of angrily morose mood you tend to get into when your team is on the verge of sliding ignominiously out of the Cup. "Everton are a bit lucky to have nil at the moment," he says. "At the start of the season, at least we were scoring as well as conceding - the nightmare scenario of a fragile defence and a toothless attack looms. Moyes needs to earn his money in the next hour or so."

He's not the only one, either: "Man, first we panic buy a player who would have cost £5m before his clash with Liverpool (Fellaini: £15m)," writes Darren Holliday before winding himself up then really getting in the mood for a RANT. "Then we play a disgraceful home derby. This week the players openly ask Moyes what the deal is with his contract ... no answer to that one. Just now we are playing as badly as we have all season and look second best to a team from Belgium. And at this very second I'm listening to random French conversation darting out of my speakers as the BetFair internet broadcast quite strangely just leaves us hanging there among the crowd staring at an empty pitch ... oh, and now awful Europoop trance is blaring out of the stadium." He signs off saying he's off to make some tea but, really, I think he might be rigging up some kind of gun-drawing contraption, shaving his head, and repeating "Are you looking at me," into the mirror over and over again.

We're off again: Saha is still fit.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------