First time in a long time that I can't watch this or Sunday. Sick of having weeks ruined, which is my own doing as counting on this disgrace of a club to cheer you up is lunacy.
I find it helps to be ruthlessly honest with yourself about what this team/club can seriously hope to achieve. This current squad, in my analysis, is a mid-table one likely to finish about 9th. That simple expectation helps me to accept that for every win over Spurs or Leicester, there will be defeats to Newcastle and Fulham. So, even after the 5-4 cup win, I had an immediate sense that the Fulham game could quite easily go against us (as I intimated in that preview thread). In my way of thinking, a win over anyone is a delight and a defeat further confirmation of my analysis. It's small consolation - but at least I am not one of those poor lost souls, bewildered that their Champions League contenders could blow up at home to a team we had beaten in 22 successive home league matches. Anybody genuinely thinking we were a serious outfit would be perplexed, possibly even angry. But rather than blaming a mediocre squad, which is what we have, they should look to their own faulty analysis for inflating their expectations.
Many, but not all Evertonians, start the virtual equivalent of ripping their shirt off and twirling it over their heads as soon as we sneak the odd win. They get carried away. Over the last 32 years, the more pessimistic analyses of Everton have generally been more accurate than those of the shirt twirlers. Without further significant player acquisition over the next few summers, this current squad will achieve little to nothing. What we would like to see, in the meantime, is a derby win and the odd good day, with perhaps a cup run to keep our season interesting. Other than that, expect the worst from Everton.