Everton Desperate to Improve

"I can feel it," an Evertonian friend of mine said to me last month. "This is our season, we are going to win the title". His optimism at the time was based on the lack of spending by the top teams in the transfer window, Chelsea being comprised of "has beens", Manchester United with no potent goal scorer and an over reliance on near forty year olds, and Liverpool, well, in his eyes they were never really a top team anyway of course.

Fast forward and Everton sit second bottom with just two points from five outings, and despite last weekend's heroics against Manchester United they are in total disarray after a toothless home defeat to Newcastle.

Only Yakubu and Leighton Baines had any kind of chances in the second half against Newcastle, and the insipid display drew derision from the Goodison faithful, which David Moyes acknowledged and even agreed with in the post-match interview.

With Jack Rodwell out until December, Mikel Arteta is looking fatigued in the middle of the park, the lack of drive in midfield can be illustrated by looking at how many times Jermaine Beckford has scored this season. Ask any Leeds fan and they can tell you the same thing - if you can get the ball to Beckford in the box, he will score. Of course, the fact that Beckford himself was brought off at half time shows how well his season is going overall. The League One marksman has struggled to find his feet in the top flight, and has netted only once, a penalty, in the Carling Cup and against League One opposition. Don't be surprised if the Betfair Football rumour mill links Everton with a striker come January.

The next few weeks will be a good time for the Toffees to pick up some points and some confidence. No one made Everton betting tips for relegation and now they have a chance of putting some points on the board and pulling away from the drop zone.

They should have no trouble with Brentford in the Carling Cup, and then important trips to Fulham and Birmingham before they set their sights on the Liverpool derby at home. Although it is still too early to call this a relegation dogfight, there is no avoiding the fact that the teams from the Mersey are floundering, their combined points tally thus far is the same as Blackpool's. The odds on that happening at the start of the season would have been pretty long.