Everton had a pretty good season once again, managing to stay relatively consistent for most of the campaign unlike previous years, but at the end there is not even the consolation of Europa League football for the Toffees. David Moyes was determined to have a better start of the season than in previous seasons and his men were fully charged-up right from the off. They completely outplayed Manchester Unite for a deserved 1:0 win at the start of the season, a game that saw Marouane Fellaini utterly dominate the whole United defence and force them into submission. The fine early-season form continued with impressive away wins at Aston Villa and Swansea and the Merseysiders were sitting in the top four going into early October. Leughton Baines and Fellaini were delivering some superb displays while the defence was holding firm and providing a great platform as well. Everton continued to go strong and play well but were dropping too many points in winnable games and a run of four draws in a row left them chasing a bit as teams above them made a gap. That said, Everton were still very hard to beat and lost just once in the first 12 games of the season, playing a mix of exciting but also resilient football which was making the most of the talent that Moyes had at his disposal. They stopped a relatively poor run of two wins in nine games with a brilliant comeback win over direct rivals Tottenham, scoring twice in the dying stages for a 2:1 win. That great victory provided a much-needed impetus going into the second part of the season and the good results continued to come in the early weeks of 2013. However, the poor form of Nikica Jelavic was depriving the team of a constant supply of goals up front and a lot of chances were being missed. This started to come back to haunt Everton as they dropped way too many points in winnable games. Actually, a very disappointing 2:1 loss away at Norwich, conceding twice at the death, left them seven points behind Arsenal in the battle for fourth place and rendered most of the remainder of the season meaningless. Everton did not give up and had a better run of form for most of March and April, with the highlight being a great victory at home to Manchester City. Yet, the key games away at Tottenham and Arsenal were not won despite great performances in both of them, and that meant that the top-four dream was over. Everton still finished relatively strongly were unable to get the fifth place and eventually finished outside the European places. Still, that was the most consistently impressive season Everton have had in at least the last five or six campaigns and Moyes still did a very good job given what he had to work it. That proved his last campaign as an Everton manager though as he accepted the challenge to take over at Manchester United and Bill Kenwright will have a tough task finding a manager as hard-working, diligent and loyal as Moyes has been over the last 11 seasons.
