And his momma cried.

Well then, the watery-eyed wizard has only gone and done it again. As someone who was more lenient towards Sean Dyche than most – and who still thinks he’s deserving of being remembered fondly for the part he played in keeping Everton in the top division during one of the most traumatic periods of the club’s history – it is undeniable that the decision to replace him with David Moyes has proven to be the correct one. 

Such has been the inflexibility and lack of adventure for most of this season that the returning Moyesiah, who parted ways with West Ham because his style of winning trophies wasn’t deemed exciting enough, now looks like primetime Marcelo Bielsa. 

Leicester are shite; let’s make no bones about that. However, you can only beat what’s in front of you, and the Toffees got off to literally the best start they have ever had. 

The returning James Garner touched the kick-off back to Jordan Pickford, he ‘got it launched’, and the next thing you know, Abdoulaye Doucoure’s through on the keeper and slotting the goal ‘he’s been due’ for about a year. 

Garner looked better than before the injury, and an upgrade on the unfortunate Oriel Mangala. His all-action style is what we we’ve been missing, and you have to think that under Dyche he was perhaps stymied by the lack of forward options, and hence looked generally hardworking but underwhelming.

Dominating the midfield here though with Gana Gueye, Garner struck the outside of the post and with a delicious through-ball created Everton’s third goal – almost a carbon copy of the second – both finished coolly by Norberto Beto, the big lovable lump. 

How can you not absolutely adore the Guinea-Bissau Nick Chadwick? A fucking big hard lad who tries his heart out every game. He’s almost the definition of a ‘cult hero’, and I don’t think I could be any happier for a player than I am when he scores. 

He’s had such a hard time at Goodison you can’t blame him for wanting to leave, but maybe this injury to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, while obviously not great as it leaves us with only one fit centre-forward, could be a blessing in disguise. Given a run in the team, Beto will make things happen and score goals. Yes, he can look ungainly as he battles with the opponents and his own feet, but his attitude is infectious and invaluable. And as he showed with his goals here on six minutes and just before the break, his movement and finishing are really not shabby at all.

So then, 3-0 up at half-time, in successive home games, it’s been so enjoyable that suddenly you are thinking ‘Oh fuck, we’re leaving here soon,’ as opposed to, ‘Let’s just burn the fucking place down, I can’t take much more of this.’

You try to pretend it’s not bothering you, the constant worry about Everton staying up, but now life  is like the second part of The Wizard of Oz, in glorious Technicolour. You find yourself whistling as you walk down the street on Sunday morning, letting on to shopkeepers who give a wistful smile, like Owen Paul in the My Favourite Waste of Time video.

Some sweet old dear in her pinny, with rollers in her hair, takes a break from mopping her front step to wave to you and shout: ‘UP THE FUCKING TOFFEES!’

And you go and get a haircut even though you don’t need one, just so you can read all the papers.

Everton continued to dominate after the break, and Beto was denied a penalty when he got suplexed in the box by that centre-half who looks like Eddie from the Iron Maiden album covers.

Compare this, dear reader, to scenes at the Vitality Stadium, where the referee was searching for an infringement more forensically than a sweaty, tobacco-chewing sheriff pulling the Wu Tang Clan’s tour bus over in Alabama.

‘You know you got a tail light out there?’ 

Bash!

‘Now, is that RZA with an S or a Zee? And if he’s a chef, where are his whites?’

In the face of this egregious two-tiered refereeing, Everton persisted, and Iliman Ndiaye tormented the visitors’ defence, in that way he does, with his performance getting the goal it deserved in the dying moments. The former Sheffield United trickster gleefully profited on the Foxes’ defenders inexplicably tentative approach to the ball, like someone prodding a tramp in their doorway with their foot to see if he’s still alive. 

Gifted with the ball, Ndiaye was never going to miss. Much like a younger Ruud van Nistelrooy, who just stood there on the sidelines, disgusted, with his nose in the air, looking like a snooty spy who has seen his dastardly plot foiled by TinTin.