Everton v Leeds – Feb 22

Don’t let me make any predictions again in the future.

The last thing I saw coming at Everton on Saturday was a tame 3-0 defeat.

Even if you throw in the defeat against Newcastle a couple of weeks back, there had been a definite upturn in performances and that familiar up and at ‘em approach that served us so well appeared to creeping back in.

But it was very much a case of taking a few steps backwards at Everton – and against a team who were below us in the table.

It was a game that further emphasised the point that Mat Klich isn’t suited to the holding role and for all he was ineffective in the first half – in keeping with the overall team performance – withdrawing Raphinha at half-time was a very strange one.

Whatever you think, Raphinha is the ONE player we have who can make something happen and conjure something up from nothing, so to bring him off when we’re 2-0 down with 45 minutes to still to play was baffling.

But off he came, we were three subs used by the time the second half kicked off, and we never looked like getting back in it. And thank god, we didn’t get another injury after the break otherwise we’d have been screwed for numbers.

With Everton winning and Newcastle seeing Aston Villa off on Sunday it means just two points separate the three of us. The plus side is that we are still six clear of Norwich, who occupy the third relegation spot.

I have to be honest, I found myself agreeing with Neil Warnock on Monday when he said Leeds (and Newcastle) were probably fortunate in that there are three far worse teams in the Premier League this season, and they’re all in the bottom three.

I’ve never been in the camp that we’ll go down and have always felt we’d finish just above. I think the current bottom three will get relegated, but when you look at the games we’ve got coming up, I still think we’re going to have to wait a while until we can breathe more easily and stop looking over our shoulder.