COMPARED to clubs like Newcastle, West Ham and Manchester City, in recent years Everton have been seen as something of a model of stability.

What they’ve lacked in big bucks, we have made up for by appointing an excellent manager and sticking with him when times have got tough.

In turn, a group of honest professionals, studded with the odd outstanding individual, have gelled together, worked hard and often finished higher in the league than sides packed with names that look great on paper but not so impressive out on the turf, where it matters.

Without the extra money needed to make the quantum leap to the very top strata of the domestic game, and in turn the hallowed ground of the Champions League, true glory has remained out of our grasp, but most Blues acknowledge that, all thing considered, things could be a lot worse.

After all, there were 80-odd clubs that would have swapped with us last season, for a start.

However, the tectonic plates feel as if they are shifting under Goodison Park, and, like those dogs and cats that sense real earthquakes coming before the lampshades begin to swing, Evertonians feel that tonight could represent the epicentre of the Blues’ season.

Quite frankly, if they lose in Liege and exit the UEFA Cup after one tie, then there’s no telling what the repercussions will be.

There will certainly be little call from the supporters for the board to relent to whatever demands are holding up the manager’s contract talks.

David Moyes has been supported wholeheartedly by the majority of fans for the whole time he’s been at Everton, but in all honesty, his stock has fallen in the past few months, as he’s failed to agree a new deal or, more importantly, sort out his side’s failings.

He’s hardly negotiating from a position of strength when the team slink out of the Carling Cup at the hands of a team containing Robbie Fowler and then struggle to muster an effort on goal in the Goodison derby.

To compound matters, he’s brought in a couple of international midfielders, including a club record £15million signing, and yet the much derided Phil Neville presently looks the most likely replacement for the departed Lee Carsley.

Now, there may have been all sorts of mitigating circumstances as to why Everton failed to sign players more immediately suited to the English game, but the buck stops with Moyes eventually. If it doesn’t, then why is he being offered a rumoured £60k a week?

As things stand though, his saving grace could be Louis Saha, a player signed with little fanfare and whose fitness raised more eyebrows than Danni Minogue’s plastic surgeon.

The Frenchman’s got bags of European experience, and in each of the games he’s featured in thus far he’s looked clever and dangerous.

Until Steven Pienaar’s fit, Everton don’t have enough skilful midfielders to make the 4-5-1 system work, so they just end up hitting the ball long anyway.

And if anything is to be learned from Saturday’s appalling display, it’s that there’s no point in waiting until we are a goal down before going with two strikers, as by then it may well be too late.

Despite all the uncertainty, and that’s before any thought is given to sketchy rumours about Indian takeovers, there are still enough good players in what is almost a fully-fit squad now, to go to Belgium, win and put a brighter complexion on the whole season.

To do it though, will require the Blues to go over there and, in the words of the song, really shake them up.