However, the manner of Saturday’s defeat brought into sharp focus how far Moyes’s side must yet travel before they can compete with the Premier League’s elite on a regular basis.

Only two places separated Chelsea and Everton in the table this season, but the reality is there is a world of difference between the two clubs.

Some facts make painful reading. Everton have now failed to beat Chelsea in their last 23 meetings – 21 of them under Moyes – while it has been more than two years since they defeated any of the top four in a league encounter.

So how can the tide be turned? Money isn’t the answer to everything, but such is Moyes’s impressive success rate in the transfer market that he would be expected to make the most of any significant cash injection.

The transfer window opens today and Everton must avoid replicating the mistakes of last summer, when hesitancy over the release of funds meant targets were missed.

This reporter commented four years ago in the wake of Champions League qualification that the most important emotion Moyes had restored among the Goodison faithful was pride.

Subsequent progress means that has been joined by belief and hope, expectations Moyes set out to raise on his arrival at the club seven years and must now manage.

Yes, it was remarkable that Everton reached the final given the opponents they have faced and their well-documented problems. But it has been far too long since the Goodison outfit have been on such a stage and it surely won’t be – it cannot be – as long before they are there again.

Of course, had the final been decided on the volume and passion of support, there would have been no contest.

Everton’s fans, starved of such occasions during the previous 14 years, completely overshadowed their Chelsea counterparts and, to their eternal credit, stayed behind after the final whistle to salute their heroes.

But perhaps this was one ask too many for an Everton side who have time and again stepped up to the plate and overcome the adversity of an already small squad being decimated by the absence of key players for lengthy periods.

Sadly, many of the stellar performers of an heroic campaign just couldn’t muster the energy or wherewithal to do themselves justice on the day.