Having scored eleven goals in a week without reply, Everton had to work hard to to earn a hard fought 1-0 win over Portsmouth. The difference was a moment of class from Louis Saha and a top drawer performance from Tim Howard, who repelled everything Pompey threw at him to keep a fourth consecutive clean sheet.

Everton finally put a bad premier league start behind them by following up Thursday night's 4-0 demolition of AEK Athens with a 3-0 victory over Blackburn Rovers on sunday. Seven goals, clean sheets, new players on show and an indication that the early season blip is behind us.

After the win over Wigan and with new players finally onboard, the feel good factor looked like returning to Everton and there was optimism that our season could finally get going. That feel good factor evaportated though after another poor display and a defeat at Fulham which also saw us lose captain Phil Neville for what looks like most of the season.