What a week. On Wednesday in the UEFA Cup, Fiorentina, 2-0 up from the first leg, met an equal and opposite reaction from an adrenalin-propelled Everton team. 

Although Everton ultimately lost through the cruellest, most British way possible, we have done more that merely carve our initials into the toilet wall of European competition. Our passionate performance at Goodison more than made up for the tripe that the travelling support had to endure in Italy.

Having dragged the game back to 2-2, it was interesting that we came unstuck through penalties, our European players finishing easily but our Anglo Saxon players struggling.

'Everton's trauma from the penalty spot is just the latest in a long line of English defeats'


Whilst our Europeans were classy and articulate in dispatching their spot kicks - our English style players swallowed their tongues - such was the fear that Andy Johnson would miss that Thomas Gravesen was brought on, and despatched his penalty with aplomb.

Yakubu (and I count him as an Anglo Saxon-style player) was the first to miss. His attempted clever penalty failing as the ball was given a kiss on the cheek by the post. The second, and last, Evertonian to fluff his lines was Phil Jagielka, and his shot was well saved rather than badly missed, but looking at the downcast punch-drunk look on his face said it all.

Everton's trauma from the penalty spot is just the latest in a long line of English defeats, and the sporting fatalism that surrounds this is as part of being British as Branston Pickle and Bruce Forsyth.

Such is the memory-scarring pain of penalty defeats that I can tell you when and where I was for every penalty shoot-out involving English sides. In midweek our pain was shared with Tottenham who also took the same route out - instead of halving the pain it was doubled.

Following that result Everton had a Sunday fixture away to Fulham, and it was an entirely different team that turned up. Whereas on Wednesday we doggedly refused to give up and attacked with panache, at Craven Cottage we were poor.

Mikel Arteta played out of his skin against the Viola, but on Sunday he played like he had been body-snatched, that someone else was operating the controls in his head. And with their chief inspiration playing like a zombie, the rest of the team followed suit.

Add to that the fact that Everton had been decimated by injuries, leaving defender Joleon Lescott to play up front vainly speaking pidgin striker in an attempt to be understood, and we have the beginning of some real issues. Brian McBride's goal finished off a poor day, and with Liverpool beating Reading, lots of ground was lost.

Two defeats, but two hugely different results. Our next games are crucial, and our place in the league will be decided by which Everton turn up - the team that matched Fiorentina or the motley crew that was bested by Fulham!