We’ve seen this movie before. Many times this season, and it’s pretty pathetic. Everton travel away against mediocre opposition that’s there for the taking. Sam Allardyce lines his team up to play conservatively, going for a draw. The Blues put in a lacklustre performance with no desire, and lose. Manager then blames any number and variety of factors and non-factors for the loss.

Repeat, ad nauseam. Case in point, the 1-0 loss yesterday at Watford FC.

“If you squander your opportunities, you can pay the price in the Premier League – it is as simple as that. “The opportunities we squandered by our lack of finishing in the opposition’s final third ended up meaning we lost the game 1-0. We should have come off with a 0-0. “Our problem away from home is that we’re not picking up the results to guarantee us safety. We didn’t have a finisher on the pitch to put the ball in the back of the net. “Michael Keane’s header: open goal. Best chance of the game. Oumar (Niasse) at the back post, totally miskicked the ball. ”Deeney’s goal was more our mix-up than great creative play. It was a terrible goal to give away at that stage. I thought we were going to nick an equaliser at the end but we didn’t even manage that.”

Your job on matchday is to prepare the team so they have the best chance to get three points, and you consistently fail on that count. Your small-team mentality handicaps the Blues every single time we play away as you seem happy to settle for a draw whether we’re playing Premier League contenders or relegation fodder.

“But our problem away from home is not just the squandering of chances – it is also the fact that we are not picking up enough results to get us safe as quick as we can. “You look at the results as a whole and you go, ‘Great - 17 points out of the past eight home games’, but then you look at the away results and you think, ‘Wow - what is the difference?’”

The difference you ask? The difference is you Big Sam. You have one job you’re getting paid a metric tonne to do, and you’re failing at it quite miserably. This season, and his tenure, cannot end quickly enough.