Premier League: Toffees could stick around for a Top Four finish

Everton have made a great start despite losing to West Brom
Despite their weekend loss, Romilly Evans thinks Everton can ride the wave of some unusually good early season form...
Only three weeks into the new Premier League season and it already seems assured that its winner will have to graduate with a masters degree from this university of hard knocks and tough surprises. The latter bracket has already been defined by landmark starts from previously unconsidered teams, such as highflying Swansea, West Ham and West Brom, whose win against Everton on Saturday saw them register their best opening results in 34 years.
However, many an auspicious beginning has turned out to be false dawn in the top flight. And where teams lack the proven credentials of some of the more established clubs, it's probably wise to sit in judgement until their squads and systems have settled down now that the first transfer window has closed.
After all, the footballing media is invariably too quick to categorise with lazy assumptions, only to discover that they were actually suffering from a misconception. The quest to find trends is, of course, hard-wired in our genes as pattern-seeking mammals. It's how we make sense of the world around us. The sporting world, though, is particularly prolific in this arena - always quick to advance a theory without exhibiting the good sense to back it up.
As a result, fallacious beliefs, like the "hot hand" in basketball or the "clutch" performer, reign supreme. Debunking these probability myths is the challenge. Still, you don't need to be a black-belt in Freakonomics or have read Moneyball to have noticed that one team is already outperforming their perennial curve of performance in the Premier League.
The team is Everton who, despite their 2-0 capitulation at the Hawthorns, sit fifth in the table and remain well ahead of the game for an outfit classed as habitual slow-starters. And, more crucially, that's a claim ably confirmed by even the most casual statophile.
In fact, for the last four years - and heedless to manager David Moyes fine-tuning their preseason routine - the Toffees have come out of the blocks with as much direction as a drunk meandering his way home after closing time. They have never once been in the top half of the table after 10 games, managing just three wins from their opening 10 games last term - and a paltry three in 17 matches in the 2010/11 season.
Conversely, their post-Christmas form is consistently the stuff of Champions League qualification. If Moyes has now found a way to bottle this form and introduce it into the initial stream of the current campaign, the Merseysiders may well enjoy a reversal of fortunes and get back to the big time. Betfair players certainly make them no forlorn hope for a Top Four finish (available at 7.26/1 to back), with an equally palatable 3.02/1 to back on offer for a more realistic Top Six finish.
Key personnel have been added to the squad, too. And while they have admittedly lost something old (Tim Cahill) and something new (Jack Rodwell), the pivotal player for them this term will surely be the gangly Belgian, Marouane Fellaini, who has proved the heartbeat of their offensive flair in the opening three games. Granted, he missed his marks against West Brom but Fellaini is terrorising defences again. He has bagged himself a brace of goals to boot - a return which contrasts starkly with a lean harvest of only 11 goals in his last three seasons.
Elsewhere, Steven Naismith has adjusted well up front to new surroundings, while Leighton Baines continues to provide more evidence that he's perhaps the best left-back in the country. But whichever way they line up, this Everton 11 looks a different proposition from the team that capitulated so tamely to QPR at the beginning of last year.
So while the Toffees may have failed to secure a third league victory in a row for their best start to a season since 1993, the future looks bright for David Moyes' men. And that's not unjustified, pigeon-holed probability.