Eerily familiar...but Blues WON'T collapse this time

PARALLELS CAN BE DRAWN TO THREE YEARS AGO WHEN TOFFEES HAD CHANCE TO GO ABOVE REDS

- Joe Thomas

THREE years ago this week, I was in Australia covering Everton. It feels like a lifetime ago.

This was a trip of interviewing Ashley Cole under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, sitting down with Frank Lampard in the team hotel and balancing watching Everton overcome Celtic and Western Sydney Wanderers with the World Cup that had caused the Premier League season to halt.

I was reminded of those heady days when a reader sent me a photo of a picture he had taken with me, him and his son during the trip, a lovely reminder of the reception the club (and I) received as we started the festive season Down Under.

But it was a period that was also on my mind as we came to the end of the most recent international break.

There are shades of early winter 2022 in this season, I feel. After Liverpool fell to defeat at home to Nottingham Forest I looked at the table and realised an Everton win at Old Trafford would put them above their fiercest rivals.

It was the first time I could remember that being the case since Bonfire Night three years ago, when Leicester City under the lights at Goodison Park.

The press room was an interesting place that evening. The Blues had laboured in parts during the opening months of the campaign, but were also showing signs of promise.