Source: Liverpool_Echo
David Prentice: Everton FC set for more twists and turns
WELCOME to Everton, the king of the plot twists. The Blues don't like to signpost their successful sides.[LNB]Like Bruce Willis's ghostly realisation, Charlton Heston stumbling across a sand-blasted Statue of Liberty or Kevin Costner suddenly talking Russian in No Way Out (sorry if I've spoiled that one for you, but you've had 23 years to see it) it's the Everton way to shock and startle.[LNB]Who saw 1984 coming?[LNB]Not the appalled Evertonians who booed their team off the pitch on New Year's Eve 1983 after the infamous Coventry bore draw.[LNB]The Blues won more points in the following calendar year than any other team.[LNB]What about 2005?[LNB]Everton became the last team to break up the top four monopoly, after collecting the lowest effective points tally in the club's history just three months earlier. Oh, and selling their best two players.[LNB]Even the team Dixie Dean led to League and FA Cup triumphs in 1932 and 1933 suffered the ignominy of being the first Everton team ever relegated just 12 months previously.[LNB]Not many predicted an Everton victory at Eastlands on Wednesday. Certainly not the bookies who went 3/1 on the away win.[LNB]But again Everton produced the plot twist. And there could be more to come.[LNB]David Moyes has consistently wished he could turn back the clock and start 2009-10 from scratch.[LNB]But if he's learned the lessons from the autumn of broken dreams, Everton could once again be on the cusp of a startling rise.[LNB]Only Manchester United have collected more points than the Blues since January.[LNB]So while 2009 ended like, well, like 1983, this year is rapidly resembling 1984.[LNB]There won't be an FA Cup win to celebrate, of course, while the Blues still have issues to attend to this summer.[LNB]They still look a striker short of a top class squad, with Louis Saha inconsistently available and Yakubu struggling to regain his once reliable goal threat.[LNB]The pace and directness Landon Donovan offered needs also replacing, while it is to be hoped that Jan Mucha will be the promising young keeper who keeps Tim Howard on his toes.
