Everton FC - Time To Draw The Battlelines

After a brusing few weeks, heck, a bruising season, the time for feeling sorry for ourselves is over. The fans,players and management need to accept the position we are in and call on that famous battling Everton spirit to dig us out of the deep hole we found ourselves in.

I have to admit I was in a right old grump on Tuesday night. After the despair of the transfer window I tuned into the Arsenal match high on hope, low on expectation.

Everton then did that really annoying thing of starting well and getting to the point where you believe they may actually get something out of the game, before totally collpasing and leaving you more p***ed off than you were at the start.

But when I awoke the next day I had a feeling I hadn't felt in years. A feeling that the world was against us and the spectre of relegation was lurching menacingly into view - It was like the late 90s all over again.

We can no longer cling to the hope that 'two or three results will see us back in the race for Europe' or 'we always start the season badly' or even, laughably, 'we will get some players in January to freshen things up'.

We can't rely on anything or anyone else to get Everton out of trouble anymore - we aren't 'too good' to go down either.

The only way we will salvaging any respectability from this season is by accepting we are in a relegation battle and scrapping our way out of it.

I'm not saying thay the players should start playing like Stoke and run around fouling people. But they should at least start showing a bit of fight. We can't afford to keep passing it sideways on the edge of the 18 yard box and bemoan the fact opposition players pack the defence. We need to up the tempo, fire in more shots, get the ball in wide areas and put decent balls into the penalty area - do everything that annoys Cesc Fabregas basically.

The feeling of passive disbelief swirling around the club will only lead to more defeats. As supporter we can't sit back and feel sorry for ourselves as the season slides downhill. We need to wake up and support the players by making Goodison a horrible place for the opposition to visit.

That starts with Blackpool on Saturday. A team who despite losing six of their last seven games sit above us. But both club's poor form mean this is a relegation six-pointer. We can't afford to serve up the dross that we did against West Ham.

Yes there are pressing issues regarding the club's finance, ownership and management. But we can't afford to squabble about those things while the club is sleep walking towards relegation.

We need to ensure we finish the season strongly and stay in this god damn division before we began to ask the diicult quesitons that needed to be directed at the club's hirearchy.

COYB!!!