2004/05 Season

[Pienaar's gloves]

Leon Osman was boss that year.

 

[Brendan Janus]

Didn't Arsenal put thirteen past us ?

 

[Brendan Janus]

Fourteen actually !!

 

[Lids1978]

Fourteen actually !!

Was it not 11 in total? 4-1 and 7-0

 

[Brendan Janus]

League Cup too, 3-1 !!

 

[Dymak]

We weren't far off title winning form before Gravesen left. I think we might have finished even higher than 4th if Gravesen had not been sold, we certainly would have beaten that Villarreal shower if we had him.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Nonsense. We conceded 46 goals that season, in the 10 seasons following it we conceded a lot less goals on 6 occasions.

We've had far better teams that have been more solid and more creative since then.

None have got fourth though. That team did what they needed to do against the opposition they found themselves up against. Relatively, they were solid enough and creative enough to finish ahead of 16 other teams. No Everton side since has been relatively good enough to do this, even if the stats look better for them.

From a personal point of view it's not so much the number of goals conceded but the type and how they are conceded. If that 04/05 team played poorly it would get beaten convincingly and there were some heavy losses home and away to Arsenal for a start. If we were 1 up however after 85 mins I'd feel confident in the players to hold out for the points which they often did.

Since then our team defending in general has improved so that over the course of a season we concede less goals yes. When we are in pressure situations though and need to hold out we often don't. This habit undermined most of the 12-13 season and reared its head again at the start of this season. It's a habit that turns wins into draws and absolutely drains momentum and confidence. Sure we don't get outclassed often now but we let in some horrible sucker punch goals. That's what I mean when I say that 04/05 team was mentally stronger than teams since.

 

[Saint Domingo]

makes me laugh that season.

It was a fluke and we only finished there because liverpool let us finish there. It was their place for the taking and after we sold graveson we nose dived results wise. If i remember right liverpool could have caught us easy but they dropped a lot of silly points.

and us finishing on 50 odd points, well there you go, no team should finish with such a low tally and gain champions league football. Midtable teams now get that tally! and the amount of points and game shas not changed.

That being said what could have been a massive fluke should have gained us a oppertunity to change things but sadly the board didnt allow it

61 points wasn't it?

 

[ijjysmith]

Nigel Martyn though.

 

[Furey1878]

61 points wasn't it?

61 points and -1 Goal Difference hahaha

Hard to imagine that being top 4 these days.

For context, we've bettered that points total 4 times since and never broke top 4, either 5th or 6th.

And we matched it in 2010 and finished 8th.

 

[Ashtonian]

61 points wasn't it?

i stand corrected.

still a ridiculous number of points for the reward though.

and liverpool were only one game behind us effectively

 

[degsy]

i) I wonder how we would've done if Gravesen had stayed...but then again maybe no Arteta.

ii) Am still convinced Real actually wanted Carsley and got the 2 baldies mixed up.