OH Everton, why do you continue to mock us so?

In the build up to Tuesday teatime’s Europa League game against Sporting Lisbon, David Moyes spoke about his team’s increasing maturity against continental opposition. Almost on cue they responded with a display that was riddled with naivety, culminating in the textbook sucker-punch away goal that puts the return leg in Portugal right in the balance.

From the very start, Everton’s approach seemed at odds with how they have been playing of late. Moyes warned against impatience and seemed to intimate that European football is fundamentally different from what’s served up in the Premier League. So instead of imposing our style on a pretty ordinary-looking Sporting side it was almost as if the Blues tried to play them at their own game. For long periods there was little between the teams when we should have been looking to put them under pressure in their own half and essentially blow them away – just as we did against Chelsea, a far superior side in every department.

Granted, the result was the same, but throughout the night there was a feeling that if we played our normal all-action style the Portuguese would struggle to cope and the whole tie could be dead and buried. From the stands at least, it looked as if Everton had over-thought the whole thing from the beginning, instead of just going out and doing what they do naturally.