WHY WE SHOULD KEEP OUR HEADS HELD HIGH

Pretty chilled about today (especially the performance by our lads in the face of these overwhelming odds) - remember the old adage 1=20. After some of the reaction by some (not all) of the Red persuasion to today's events - like the controversy itself not entirely unexpected it must be said I'm as proud as ever to be an Evertonian - with the obvious exception of the behaviour of a minority of our crowd. This reaction by some of the Red brethren appears to be a validation of their support for that club by a complete disregard for a shoddy, shocking decision by Martin Atkinson. Be that as it may, supplemented by the overreaction by Suarez to the (non) tackle and the condescending manner in which a few of his team mates urged Rodwell from the pitch,their manager, through a limited statement of sympathy for his dismissal (when clearly the result was hardly going to be altered by a small effort to admit to this poor call) and the petulant goal celebrations close to the Street End by Suarez and, in particular, Carroll.

Of course I'm angry about the result, angry about the referee's incompetence (I'll stop short of saying 'cheating'), disappointed in the way footballers over react (Silva, last week - my comment then was basically he won the game with one move to get Neville in the book), disappointed the FA pay lip service to the respect campaign, disappointed we are accused of being dirty, disappointed the so-called Big Teams get the rub of the green (almost beyond dispute this one), disappointed once again we've are the wrong end of a bad call in this fixture... you know, but keeping it to perspective... what else do you expect!

You shouldn't allow this to cloud over Everton's performance. I want you to move on - tomorrow, maybe a little bit later, you might reflect on some of the comforting aspects that can still be found from the moral fibre the players showed, the terrific support that the players received from the fans in the ground and, if it is at all possible, to overlook the same-old same-old victim situation we perceive and remain proud in the team and remember that we support a fine club which retains some of the right virtues so often missing within the game in the modern era.