Last night we got dragged into a battle, we too frequently got involved in the match that Stoke wanted to make it.

Players such as Barkley, Davies and Mirallas allowed no time in possession and they failed to raise their game significantly enough to truly warrant putting Stoke under any considerable spell of pressure that might have yielded a winner, apart from the late incident when Lee Grant saved very well from Davies and Lookman, at no other point did you feel an Everton winner would come.

There were never enough men in the opposition penalty box, and the service was poor to a below par Romelu Lukaku.

All in all we took a relatively good steady point at a hard venue and from a game which developed into everything I expected it would be, a pure scrap.

We will know better after the visit of Bournemouth on Saturday if last night's hard earned point was a valuable one though, failure to build on it by not beating the Cherries will be very negligible and would also probably tell us that the players don't have the mettle to truly put the sides above us under pressure.

Robles seems to be growing into a fine keeper again, I worry a lot less when I see his name on the team sheet than I used to.

A cold, windy night in Stoke, and we did okay.

There's definitely a much harder edge to Koeman's Everton than the meek spined one from last season.

We are now a much harder team to score against and I for one, am really enjoying the "no nonsense" defending of putting the ball in Row Z again unlike last season's insane Beckenbauer turns on the edge of our own penalty area resulting in many goals being conceded.

The second clearout in the summer should be Mirallas, Lennon, Funes Mori and possibly Stekelenburg.

Holgate was caught ball watching, but young players will make mistakes but he is good enough to learn from this mistake. He gives us the option of playing 3 at the back which suits us better than a back 4. So I hope he starts against Bournemouth on Saturday.

With Barry,Gueye, McCarthy, Davies and Schneiderlin all competing for a midfield start at last we have proper competition for places. I just wish we had more competition for the forwards.

The conditions were never conducive to passing movements and to a large extent that suited Stoke more than our team. Overall, we can be happy to keep our unbeaten run but the players must learn to start games on the front foot. Our inability to establish an early lead in away games is a handicap. Worse though is our inability to stop the opposition scoring an early goal. That has cost us points at Bournemouth, Southampton and Hull.

We have still to visit four of the top six teams when we will not be able to afford such slow starts.

One was McCarthy played a little further forward than usual in the last 10 - 15 minutes. His deft touch to release Davies almost resulted in a chance but the youngster took one touch too many & he played a delicious through ball again to Davies in the closing minutes which was just a tad overhit.

Am I right to suspect Koeman is preparing McCarthy for a kind of No 10 role which could solve a variety of issues such as McCarthy could be less involved in the more physical side of the pitch because of his recent niggles while also contributing to the harrying and pressing of the opponents higher up the pitch and also solving our never-ending quest for a Mata-esque kind of player?

The second thing relates to a couple of times Davies got into goalscoring position in a typical Lampard way of arriving late into the box which, if he is properly groomed, could solve another of our long-standing issues of lack of goals from midfield.

Davis and McCarthy playing a bit higher up also lets Schneiderlin and Gueye to do the destruction job to perfection.

Am I getting too excited too early or exaggerating simple passages of play? Time will only tell.

Bournemouth on Saturday is another test, they will without doubt park the bus and traditionally we have struggled in those games. If we can get three points against them on Saturday, for me, that is a good sign of progress added to the previous three games.

If you watch Schneiderlin, he is was more capable of the role than is McCarthy. His range of passing, movement, decision making and comfort in possession are all very good. McCarthy is one dimensional in comparison.

I thought that Schneiderlin played very well against Stoke. He hit a few dubious passes at times but in general, his quality was there to see. I think he will rank alongside Gana as one of the best assets we have picked up this season.

Given the next 3 games are Bournemouth (H), M'boro (A) and Sunderland (H), I feel these should all be wins. 10 points from 12 in February, on top of a full house in January would set us up the nicely for the run in.

Gana is back, Morgan and Ademola are fitting in quickly and Tom just seems to grow into each game. Upbeat is the feeling of the moment as far as my beloved blues are concerned.

This is the best thing I've read in a match report in yonks. You've a flair for wordsmithery, Mr Lloyd!

Somehow Everton must show more resilience early on to a degree where they stifle the opposition in midfield and discourage them. Only then will Everton be able play their own possession game and attack with efficiency.

In many games this season Everton have been very shaky defending in the first fifteen minutes and even if they don't concede then, they have psychologically given belief to the opposition that they can score against Everton when ever they attack, even the so-called lesser teams.

However, with some players now performing better and some new players one has to be more optimistic about the future tactics.