IF you were handpicking your ideal opponents to help you recover from a bad result and performance in the derby, Chelsea would almost certainly come very near the bottom of the list.

To make matters worse, Everton will almost certainly face the favourites to win this season’s Premier League without the presence of Marouane Fellaini.

The big Belgian’s ankle injury, sustained in that X-rated collision with Sotiris Kyrgiakos, means that whoever plays at centre-half against Didier Drogba and Niclas Anelka will do so without the aid of big, bushy first line of defence that’s been so important in recent weeks. We’ll never know whether Fellaini’s departure from the Anfield pitch was pivotal, but against 10 men Everton were desperately disappointing.

We would have expected a fully-fit Mikel Arteta to dictate the match, but the Spaniard looked miles off the pace and could do little to influence such a physical encounter.

Chelsea are hardly shrinking violets either, so David Moyes has a big decision to make over whether he risks starting with him or instead opts to push someone more defensive like Phil Neville or John Heitinga into the midfield to try and nullify regular Everton tormentor, Frank Lampard.

For all the players returning, Moyes’s options still seem pretty limited, thanks mainly to the fact that quite a few of them still look some way short of being properly match-fit. Apart from Arteta, the other substitutes, Victor Anichebe and Yakubu Aiyegbeni – who worryingly seems to be taking an age to recover from his Achilles injury – also looked sluggish and, well, a bit on the heavy side.

We always knew that February was going to be a tough month, with the derby looking arguably the most winnable. Saturday’s performance represented the worst possible start then.

Both sides were guilty of some disgraceful tackles but Everton seemed more rattled by it than their opponents.

They passed the ball around to no effect until Liverpool scored and then, with over half an hour left, they panicked and starting knocking it long, playing right into their hands. Rafael Benitez mustn’t have been able to believe his luck.

Still, difficult as it is to accept, watching Everton spurn yet another great opportunity, we have to try and not let that performance overshadow the progress that has been made since… since Liverpool last beat us.