This picture is 2012-13 season no?

Anyway 04-05 was a great season, we were so close yet so far in that summer of 2005 and the Villarreal killer blow ended our Champions League hopes.

Without doubt the Carsley derby was the highlight, defensively that season we were watertight but again, we lacked goals and dynamism going forward, something which snowballed into the 05-06 season due to not signing a quality striker.

The –1 goal difference tells a story of how tight the margins were between success and failure. The signing of Tim Cahill coupled with a tremendous team spirit made a huge difference especially in the first half of the season.

After the turn of the year, the departure of Gravesen left a hole in midfield. Although Arteta arrived on loan, he took a while to adjust to the intensity of the Premier League.

The signing of James Beattie failed to make the difference we might have expected up front. Indeed it could be argued his arrival had a negative impact on Marcus Bent who had exceeded expectations until Christmas but contributed little in the final months of the season.

Two of the three defeats in the last four games came after Champions League qualification had been secured. The biggest blow came in the final game, a 3-2 defeat at Bolton, when Lee Carsley suffered an injury which ruled him out for most of the following season.

1. Norwich City (A) and being at a family friend's wedding, desperately using my gran's Fred Flinstone phone to try and get BBC teletext updates (I'm old!). Somehow it worked, and 'NOR 2-3 EVE FT' flashed up the second the minister asked if there was any reason the couple shouldn't be married, and it took every ounce of self control not to scream "YESSS!"

2. Aston Villa (A). I don't think we ever had such a dominant away game under Moyes... in the middle of our worst form that season, we just absolutely controlled it from start to finish. Should have had at least six. The third goal was telepathy manifest; if that had been a Ronaldo - Rooney or Robben - Drogba combo, I'm pretty sure they'd still be talking about it on MotD 20 years on.

3. Mikky's free kick against Palace (H) - the moment we saw the real him. I had my doubts about him, as many of us thought he was supposed to be Gravesen's replacement. A prime example of 'short term pain, long term gain' when it comes to changing personnel. Easily our best all-round player of the 2000s, and it's not even close IMO.

So much so that the Minister of Sport at the time said that Everton didn't deserve to be in Europe 'cos we finished nearer the bottom than the top??

But we still finished nearer the top than the redshite who he said should get our place. Tosser of the highest order!

My memory of that season is a 7-0 thrashing at Arsenal on the final weekend before the 3-2 beating at Bolton. Without those results, we would have had a semi-respectable goal difference.

Asked the question and no, not the worst defeat for the Champions. Newcastle lost IX-I to Sunderland.

[It was that long ago the BBC had not been created and numbers were written in Roman Numerals.]

Beating Liverpool is always nice, but I think the most special game at Goodison that season (maybe other than beating Newcastle 2-0 to help us clinch 4th, which was cemented the next day at Highbury) was under the floodlights when Duncan Ferguson rolled back the years, and so did our famous old stadium. I thought it was the loudest I'd heard the crowd (since they had done away with the terraces) that night.

I don't know many Evertonians who wouldn't have taken a 17th-placed finish after we'd had to sell Rooney (so Bill the Bastard could stay in charge). We got absolutely battered at home to Arsenal, on the opening day of the season but I much preferred the season when we last won a trophy -- even though we only sealed our Premier League status a few days before we beat Manchester United at Wembley.

The final was 11 days later. In that period, he dictated a letter and signed it to thank me for my fax and included the words "and we want to be talking Cups and European Cups next year". How true.

Never did like Koeman, especially after the "tackle" on Craig Short.