Premier League: Toffees look a sweet bet to finish top four

David Moyes has assembled a strong and settled side

The race to finish immediately behind the two Manchester clubs is wide open says Ralph Ellis, but in Everton you have a strong and settled side which ought to be good enough to see them finish top four...

I'd finished writing a column with the reasons why Arsenal wouldn't make the top four, when I got an e-mail back from one of the Betfair editors. "So who will be fourth?" it said.

It was a fair question. So far this season it's been far easier to work out the clubs that won't live up to their Champions League hopes, rather than to say who will get there. I still don't see the Gunners recovering from the loss of Robin Van Persie's 30 goals; Tottenham have shed too many good players; Liverpool remain a work in progress; and so on.

In fact it's tempting to think that, outside the two Manchester clubs, the Barclays Premier League has become the new Championship where everyone beats everyone and the league becomes all down to who puts a run together in the second half of the season. It was only last week I was singing the praises of Michael Laudrup's Swansea and then they find themselves 3-0 down at home to Norwich by half time.

So give it a week and it might be time to tear this opinion up too, but I just sense that Everton's late surge to a home win over Spurs yesterday might yet prove a defining moment for David Moyes' team. And at a current price of 5.49/2 for a Top Four Finish, if I get another e-mail demanding a definite opinion then I'll have to go sweet on the Toffees.

They are actually fourth at the moment which is a good start. There are only four points separating them from Norwich in 12th, I know, but it means they have as much advantage as anybody. And to be holding on to that position after a run, before yesterday, of just nine points in eight games is a sign of how well they started the campaign. They also have a better goal difference than any of the contenders apart from Arsenal.

In Marouane Fellaini they have got a match winner. I saw him at Fulham a few weeks ago and he bullied both Brede Hangeland and especially Aaron Hughes with his size, strength and power. Not just a physical force, Everton can play the ball to him in the air and he'll bring it under control on his chest and create for them. Good news that he's said today he wants to stay at Goodison rather than listen to offers from elsewhere which are beginning to arrive.

Maybe that's partly because the club is arguably the most stable of any of the contenders. Owner Bill Kenwright doesn't have the financial muscle of any of the clutch of billionaires trying to boss the other big sides, but he does have a splendid sense of how to run the club. Yes, he's looking around for big investment, but he won't be selling to the first person to walk into the room talking big. The long term future is what matters most to him.

There's also stability on the pitch. Moyes is a bit old school in how he picks a settled side and stays with it, and his players like that. They understand their jobs, know how they'll defend and how they'll attack, and as well as looking long for Fellaini can play possession football too.

Moyes has also become the master of how to play the January transfer window. Last year it was the signing of Nikica Jelavic and Steven Pienaar which provided the momentum for a charge in the second half of the season; this season you can be sure he already has another new arrival lined up to inject some freshness at the right time.

In a year when so many clubs are going through transition, Everton are settled and strong. And for fourth place this season, that might just be all it takes.