Not even the most optimistic of Everton fans could have predicted that their team would fight for honours this term after the disappointing start to the season, which was responsible for the early elimination from Europe and also a very poor start to the league campaign. The numerous injury problems prevented David Moyes’ team from recording better results at the start to the league campaign but once the Toffees have learned how to cope, the things started improving.

The Scottish manager didn’t have such a big squad to begin with and no wonder that the results started taking the wrong turn when his key players picked up numerous injuries. Nevertheless, the Toffees believed that they had enough quality to return to the top part of the table and they managed to do that even though the injury problems were still there. Moyes was forced to play some of his players out of position, while he also introduced youngsters like Gosling and Rodwell, who have shown a tremendous amount of potential. You are probably aware that Moyes had no fit strikers at one stage of the season, thus Cahill and Fellaini had to act as centre forwards in several games. Arteta played a couple of games as a holding midfielder before he, too, got injured, but what is really impressive is that the results didn’t suffer.

David Moyes simply have to be congratulated for what he has done at Everton as he was the one who made all this enforced changes with such brilliance that his team just kept playing better and better. At the time when his strikers were on the sidelines, he based the results on excellent defence, led by Lescott and Jagielka, which kept the clean sheet in so many games this season and thus allowed their team to win the games by scoring just one goal per match. The Toffees soon reached the top six in the Premiership table, which is where they essentially belong and if they had just had a bit better start to the league campaign, they would have probably even qualified for the Champions League. Nevertheless, their fans must be delighted with team’s efforts this season, especially as Everton managed to reach the FA Cup final, having beaten Manchester United in the semis and winning this major competition would be the perfect finish of this season. Even though online bookmakers were giving Everton 9/1 (8.00) odds on winning the FA Cup before the semis, the odds are now much lower and Everton to win the FA Cup now pays just 3/2 (2.50). The Toffees definitely deserved to win the major trophy this season and my opinion is that they can go all the way.