Another season of European football already assured. In the FA Cup final. Regarded once again as a force in the top flight. Not bad for what Everton’s chubby neighbour calls a “small club”. In returning to Roland Hughes*, the star of an excellent Who Are They? last season, we assumed Rafa would not be near the top of his Christmas card list. But then we’re just humouring Roly really, in the hope that his team will be kinder to us on Sunday than they have been in our last few encounters …

It’s been a fantastic season again. I was actually quite worried at the start as I really thought our place as the “next best team” would be threatened by more teams than in previous seasons – Villa, Spurs, Man City.

Thankfully, we’ve confirmed a place in Europe again (four top-six finishes in five years, not bad), and not just thanks to the other teams’ underperformance. We’ve also won a place in the FA Cup Final having beaten Boro, Villa, Liverpool and Man Utd to get there.

We are where we are through hard graft, some classy performances and having fought against the odds with key players (Yakubu, Arteta, Cahill and now Jagielka) out for long stretches of the season.

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