IF IT walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks, well, maybe it’s a duck.

We’re almost in December, Everton have played 14 league games and only won three of them. That record tells its own story, and we are at the point where we have to accept that the pre-season optimism was unfounded and that this team, as it stands, isn’t likely to come good just as long as we wish for it hard enough.

Monday night’s game at the Stadium of Light was another open, exciting encounter, not dissimilar to the one at Blackpool the other week. But once again, the Everton supporters came away well aware of their side’s shortcomings.

Jermaine Beckford’s last-gasp miss received a lot of attention, but as Leighton Baines pointed out, the striker only had 10 minutes to make an impact – what about the rest of the team and the other 80 minutes? What’s more, at least Beckford made the run and had a dig, which is more than can be said of the cowardly lion, Louis Saha, who used most of his energy miscontrolling the ball and shrugging.

He wasn’t the only senior player who let the side down though. Johnny Heitinga was anonymous again – a defensive midfielder who doesn’t defend – while Mikel Arteta only redeemed his performance with the late goal. There are rumours that the Spaniard is carrying an injury and requires injections to play, and watching him at Sunderland those stories look plausible.

With the central midfield playing so poorly it’s perhaps no surprise that we can’t exert any real control on games. We play well in spells, with Baines, Steven Pienaar and Tim Cahill carrying the team at the moment, but there’s always an air of vulnerability, even against the weakest opposition. And let’s be honest, ‘playing some nice stuff at times’ is the sort of thing that people say about flakey sides like West Ham. It’s not good enough for Everton.

The trust that we placed in this group of players at the start of the season is starting to look misplaced. Some of the senior ones look jaded and complacent while David Moyes has the appearance of a man who knows there are vital decisions to make in January.

Does he keep faith with the players who are currently letting him down or does he begin to wheel, deal and shake things up?

He must have begun to wonder what he has to lose.