Top 4 ?

[Saint Domingo]

The team isn't exactly pulling up trees but 4th is still very much possible. Despite the Burnley result, Spurs and West Ham also lost. Chelsea only drew. It's going to be tough but certainly not impossible. If we win our game in hand, we go three points ahead of the RS.
Personally I don't think we'll quite have enough for 4th but it's certainly not over yet. Plenty more twists and turns to go.

First two priorities for me are finish above the RS and at least qualify for at least the Europa. After that, winning the FA Cup and top 4 would be the cherry on the cake.

I know it’s narrow minded but I’d honestly consider it a decent season if we qualify for Europe and that lot don’t win the CL. That’s a good season for us and also scuppers one of our biggest rivals as they have no CL football next season. Spurs also wouldn’t have it. Neither would Arsenal. A bit of sensible spending in the summer coild therefore put us right back up with competing with those three teams next season. That’s a long way away from where we’ve been recently.

 

[BigBlueConk]

The existence of a thread contemplating the possibility of top 4 tells me much about this season in general, but also what a good job CA is doing in spite of the awful Goodison form and with a load of average squad players.

 

[shagpuss]

I know it’s narrow minded but I’d honestly consider it a decent season if we qualify for Europe and that lot don’t win the CL. That’s a good season for us and also scuppers one of our biggest rivals as they have no CL football next season. Spurs also wouldn’t have it. Neither would Arsenal. A bit of sensible spending in the summer coild therefore put us right back up with competing with those three teams next season. That’s a long way away from where we’ve been recently.

Nothing narrow-minded about it at all. Liverpool are our local rival. It's totally natural to want to finish above them. Considering we've only finished above them 5 times since 1970! The fact they're such a bunch of c#nts makes it even more desirable.
Also by pushing them down the league, it helps us progress at their expense.

 

[Lanolin]

Give me this unpredictability any day over the Moyes Silva Koeman Allardyce style of football that will beat enough of the bottom 14 at home so we don’t go down but set up for a draw away at the top sides. There’s no hope to that football. We went decades not winning at certain grounds and knowing before kick off that we couldn’t win, we weren’t even setting out to win.

Ancelotti has changed that. It might be frustrating in other ways now but we go into a quarter final against the best team in Europe expecting to lose but at least with a bit of hope that this manager and team have shown they can get results from nowhere. I remember lots of Evertonians calling for exactly this towards the end of the Moyes period. They’d had enough of predictability of every season going the same of winning and losing to the same teams every season. Now it’s here and some want to go back to beating Newcastle and Fulham at home like West Ham do.

If we finish in the same place I can honestly say I couldn't care less whether the wins come away at Arsenal or home to Fulham. Winning at Anfield was great, but if we finish 8th this year I can assure you I won't be sitting here in 10 years time saying '2020/21 was special wasn't it, that 1-0 win at Spurs , a draw at Old Trafford, we've never had it so good'.

 

[LouReedwalkonthewildside]

If we finish in the same place I can honestly say I couldn't care less whether the wins come away at Arsenal or home to Fulham. Winning at Anfield was great, but if we finish 8th this year I can assure you I won't be sitting here in 10 years time saying '2020/21 was special wasn't it, that 1-0 win at a Spurs side that , a draw at Old Trafford, we've never had it so good'.

If we don't get into Europe I'll look back at this season as a missed opportunity.

 

[Steve EFC]

I really thought the top 4 talk would have stopped by now. It’s not helpful and it’s why this forum gets so negative. The same people that talk up top 4 are the first to start bitching when we lose a game. All because they don’t manage their expectations and align them with realism.
I’d love nothing more than seeing us get back into Champions league and one day win the league again but we are not there yet. Only have to watch us play to see that.
Yes it’s mathematically possible but in the same way it’s mathematically possible we finish 12th like we did last season. Personally we have a better chance of winning the FA cup than finishing top 4 because I fancy us in one off games as opposed to the routine of collecting points against lesser sides week in week out and showing the consistency needed.
Progress is evident and Europa qualification however it comes would be the benchmark of a successful season, let’s not lose sight of this.

 

[Drico]

The team isn't exactly pulling up trees but 4th is still very much possible. Despite the Burnley result, Spurs and West Ham also lost. Chelsea only drew. It's going to be tough but certainly not impossible. If we win our game in hand, we go three points ahead of the RS.
Personally I don't think we'll quite have enough for 4th but it's certainly not over yet. Plenty more twists and turns to go.

First two priorities for me are finish above the RS and at least qualify for at least the Europa. After that, winning the FA Cup and top 4 would be the cherry on the cake.

No, it's not "over". We are in it until we are out of it. However, despite the Spurs and West Ham losses, our chances, which were never great, have significanly receded. We lost a game that a top four side would be expected to win. West Ham lost a game they would be expected to lose. Spurs lost a derby. Chelsea took an away point. Our result is by far the most damaging and unexpected in terms of a top four side's expected result.

In all likelihood, the "twists and turns" you speak about will only serve to inflate the hopes of Evertonians as we, perhaps, temporarily come "back" into the equation - but it's a very safe bet that the defeats to Fulham, Newcastle, Leeds, and Burnley will prove decisive to our "hopes", such as they ever were.

We are still in the top four race in so much as Manchester United are still in the title race. We've seen the evidence with our own eyes by now and the overall trend after 28 matches is apparent. We can choose to accept it, move on, and lessen any disappointment, or we can, in my view, continue to delude ourselves that we might somehow sneak in. We really won't. We will do well to finish in the top six. 8th or 9th looks the most likely finishing position.

 

[Cameron Manning]

I really thought the top 4 talk would have stopped by now. It’s not helpful and it’s why this forum gets so negative. The same people that talk up top 4 are the first to start bitching when we lose a game. All because they don’t manage their expectations and align them with realism.
I’d love nothing more than seeing us get back into Champions league and one day win the league again but we are not there yet. Only have to watch us play to see that.
Yes it’s mathematically possible but in the same way it’s mathematically possible we finish 12th like we did last season. Personally we have a better chance of winning the FA cup than finishing top 4 because I fancy us in one off games as opposed to the routine of collecting points against lesser sides week in week out and showing the consistency needed.
Progress is evident and Europa qualification however it comes would be the benchmark of a successful season, let’s not lose sight of this.

I think it is best to look at Everton’s situation realistically which you seem to be doing Steve, I think the list of injuries mounting up has taken the possibility of finishing in the top six out of the question unfortunately, never mind the top four,the FA cup is another matter, but we are playing one of the top clubs in Europe!!

 

[AndyGray]

No, it's not "over". We are in it until we are out of it. However, despite the Spurs and West Ham losses, our chances, which were never great, have significanly receded. We lost a game that a top four side would be expected to win. West Ham lost a game they would be expected to lose. Spurs lost a derby. Chelsea took an away point. Our result is by far the most damaging and unexpected in terms of a top four side's expected result.

In all likelihood, the "twists and turns" you speak about will only serve to inflate the hopes of Evertonians as we, perhaps, temporarily come "back" into the equation - but it's a very safe bet that the defeats to Fulham, Newcastle, Leeds, and Burnley will prove decisive to our "hopes", such as they ever were.

We are still in the top four race in so much as Manchester United are still in the title race. We've seen the evidence with our own eyes by now and the overall trend after 28 matches is apparent. We can choose to accept it, move on, and lessen any disappointment, or we can, in my view, continue to delude ourselves that we might somehow sneak in. We really won't. We will do well to finish in the top six. 8th or 9th looks the most likely finishing position.

You are right. We both have 1% chance.

 

[Saint Domingo]

If we finish in the same place I can honestly say I couldn't care less whether the wins come away at Arsenal or home to Fulham. Winning at Anfield was great, but if we finish 8th this year I can assure you I won't be sitting here in 10 years time saying '2020/21 was special wasn't it, that 1-0 win at Spurs , a draw at Old Trafford, we've never had it so good'.

Fully agreed. One way of looking at it though is that it ‘should’ be easier to crack the nut of how to beat poorer teams at home than it is of how to beat top sides away.

It all boils down to the same thing in my view though that we keep waiting for a managerial Hail Mary to dig us out a hole. Martinez’s passing philosophy will do it, oh no wait Koeman’s disciplined system will, ah actually Silva has a revolutionary new way of playing, ah well Ancelotti is one of the best ever so he’ll sort it. It all ignores the problem of a squad that apart from one crazy season under Koeman has not received enough funding, and what funding it has received has been spent poorly at times.

We need to be acquiring a squad of talent that is maintained at a top 6 level, then have them managed by very good managers. At the moment we’ve ranged from giving average squads to average managers, and poor squads to good managers. The top 6 sides are all maintaining far higher levels of talent in their squads and adding more all the time. We can talk about this or that home game or in season troubles but on the bigger picture until we start playing the same game as the top 6 teams any achievement we have will be fleeting.

 

[messymascot]

If West Ham, Spurs and us win our games in hand West Ham will be on same number of points as 4th we will be 2 points behind and Spurs will be 3 points behind. Everyrhing still to play for its just harder now than it should have been. Get some players fully fit in international break and go again. Even Leicester aren't unassailable yet given some of their remaining fixtures.

 

[carolinablue232]

We keep losing every game when the door appears slightly open. We’ll be lucky to get top 6.

 

[degsy]

It's always just out of reach, but still in reach - then we coque it up...then we win a game or two.
Then.
Its always just out of reach
Etc.
Etc.
But we're running out of games

 

[messymascot]

At least we didn't upset City tonight they might let us win on the last day. If we'd stopped the quadruple you could have been sure they would have destroyed us!

 

[Drico]

At least we didn't upset City tonight they might let us win on the last day. If we'd stopped the quadruple you could have been sure they would have destroyed us!

The good news is they'll have nothing to play for then. The bad news is neither will we.

We're just not good enough. The summer is where it's at and will go a long way to determining if Carlo can build a serious side or not during his tenure.