This season is ageing me. I now make Peter Reid look like Peter Pan!

ONE of the worst elements of all this is the wait. It’s endless. I wish we could have a mini relegation tournament, lasting maybe a week, and get it over with. I’ve had a knot in my stomach since Wolves at home last month, when Liverpool fan Conor Coady scored the only goal of a game we had to win. Another childhood Red, Aaron Cresswell, netted against us at West Ham this month, not that there’s a conspiracy or anything. That would involve questioning why Rafa Benitez allowed our two most creative players, James Rodriguez and Lucas Digne, to leave Everton. Benitez was a disastrous appointment. My only criticism of his replacement, Frank Lampard, would be a bit of naivety. We had the chance after levelling at the London Stadium to shut up shop, but we carried on pressing and conceded. It was the same story at Burnley. At 2-1 ahead we needed to get nine men behind the ball but attacked and lost the must-not-lose game. Mistakes, we’ve seen a few. So that knot of worry has progressed into sleepless nights, the worst being Sunday. I was a reasonably youthful 50-something but now I make Peter Reid look like Peter Pan. I’m taking my son up to the Chelsea game on Sunday fearing it might be the last we see in the top flight at Goodison. The first for me was against Arsenal in the early Seventies and thankfully I’ve seen some rare old times in the intervening years. I don’t go to so many these days, so don’t warrant much sympathy. Those incredible fans who travel the country weekin, week-out… they do. They wanted Farhad Moshiri to think big when he bought the club. Just as Chelsea and Manchester City had done when they got the money (and had fewer titles between them than Everton’s nine). But thinking has not been a strength of Moshiri and his board. We’re paying the price for that.