IF the FA Cup was handed to the club whose supporters wanted it most, then Everton would have spent yesterday afternoon parading the trophy through the city.

Just as in the semi-final against Manchester United, the Blues arrived in London in their thousands and made themselves heard. Even the utterly random special guest, Kofi Annan, must have thought, “This lot really look up for it today,” as the Evertonians got behind their team well before the kick-off. And the former Secretary-General of the United Nations had hardly retaken his seat – he must have come up lucky in the ballot – when Everton got a start that no-one could have dreamed of.

It always feels like something of a gamble starting any match with Louis Saha, so it was a statement of David Moyes’s faith in the fragile Frenchman that he gave him the nod in the biggest game in the club’s recent history.

He repaid his manager with the quickest goal ever in an FA Cup final, but that record, previously held by Roberto Di Matteo, was just about the only thing Everton took from Chelsea on the day.

Phil Neville suggested that Everton scored too early, but in all honesty catching the Londoners cold was probably the only way they were ever going to find the back of net.

A Saha header in the second half was the only other moment where Everton might have altered the course of the game.

That time though, his finish ended up in the fans behind the goal, and less than 10 minutes later, Frank Lampard was doing what he does all the time, smashing home the goal that won the Cup.

There were no complaints from the disappointed Blues fans at the final whistle. Just as in the Carling Cup semi-final last season, Chelsea were simply too good for us, no matter what we tried. Of all the top teams in the country, they have proven David Moyes’s bete noire.

He’s sent out Everton teams that have managed to upset all the rest of the established order in English football – a number of them during this journey to Wembley – but Chelsea’s mixture of combativeness and footballing ability consistently proves too difficult to overcome.

In many ways it’s easy to imagine that if Moyes was ever given real money to build a team, it wouldn’t be too different from Chelsea’s: they are physically strong, work extremely hard and have a number of top class match-winners. Not so very long ago they were making European Champions Barcelona look ordinary, so the fact that they managed to contain Everton in the Wembley heat came as no real surprise to anyone.