EVERTON go into this weekend’s FA Cup semi-final with as many factors going for them as they could have hoped for.

I spoke some weeks ago about how things might change for Manchester United as the semi-final approached and from an Everton point of view, things could not have gone much better.

The Red Devils are no longer the nailed-on certainties for the Premier League that they were and the reason for that, of course, is that they have started leaking goals at the worst possible stage of the season and they no longer have an air of invincibility about them.

One of the games in which they looked very vulnerable, of course, was last week’s Champions League home leg against FC Porto which their manager Sir Alex Ferguson publicly stated he wanted and expected his team to put the tie to bed at Old Trafford.

Instead United have had to take last night’s return in Portugal very, very seriously indeed and are also now looking beyond the weekend at a testing and pressurised run-in at the tail end of the title race.

Compared with Manchester United’s take on the situation, Everton themselves have continued to show fine form in recent weeks. A blip at Portsmouth was immediately put behind them with a resounding and comprehensive defeat of European hopefuls Wigan Athletic and what I thought was another excellent and expansive performance away to would-be Champions League qualifiers, Aston Villa.

It was a game Everton didn’t win because of a wonderful – if somewhat freaky – free-kick and, let’s face it, a dubious penalty (I know Villa probably should have been given one earlier, but that’s by the bye).

The 3-3 draw, however, should not detract from the fact that Everton are in good goal-scoring form and that United’s defence have been leaking goals, so it’s not beyond David Moyes’ team the get the result we all want on Sunday.

Having said that, the Old Trafford outfit are obviously still formidable opposition and Everton certainly won’t under-estimate them.