Everton still a work in progress for Moyes

Whatever else happened, David Moyes knew even before the teams kicked off that this was a landmark night in the progress he has overseen in the six years since Everton identified him as the man who might take them forward into a new era of success. It was clear enough in the roar that greeted his team's emergence from the tunnel, a din as powerful as anything to have risen from the collective throats of Goodison Park for perhaps a couple of decades.

It was a noise that spoke not only of ambition and expectation but of the unqualified endorsement that Moyes has earned from a demanding audience still frustrated by years of underachievement, years in which the legacy bequeathed by Howard Kendall slipped away. The former centre-half, a player of no particular distinction, who signalled his managerial talent at Preston, has won over Everton's supporters by the wise principle of keeping faith with the methods he believes will work and proving, in an age of dizzying impatience, that there is merit in continuity.

It is something that might make for embarrassment elsewhere, particularly, it might be suggested, at the club that has been talking so much lately about its history, yet which is likely to be remembered for nothing much more this season than another attack of panic. Unlike Newcastle, Everton can offer substance to its claim to be a big club that is at least relatively fresh in the memory.

It is a club with a history that still beats strongly, that can still be felt in this most atmospheric of stadiums and which was resonant in that wall of sound. In those old enough it recalled a night almost 23 years ago, when Goodison hosted its last semi-final, in the Cup-Winners' Cup, when the goals from Graeme Sharp, Andy Gray and Trevor Steven that overturned Bayern Munich created arguably the greatest night in the club's history.

Avram Grant was horribly wide of the mark when he spoke of the Carling Cup meaning more to Everton, making a wholly inappropriate comparison with Hapoel Petah Tikva, the small club with which he won his first silverware as a manager, in Israel's equivalent of the League Cup. Chelsea, unapologetically nouveaux riches, may have bigger targets but in the grander scheme of things, in the history of the English game, Everton are a club with a stature that demands more respect than the Chelsea manager has given them thus far.

In the end, there was disappointment, Chelsea's instinctive resilience as Everton worked so hard to find the goal that would restore parity to the tie, ultimately giving them the edge, leaving Moyes still to find a way to win in the highest company. His side has yet to beat Chelsea, indeed has not beaten any of the teams above them in the Premier League this season, but he has them fourth in the table on merit, into the knock-out stages of the Uefa Cup because they are good enough, now at a level from which, with a little more patience and investment, they can advance to the next stage. Last night, perhaps, showed that Everton are still not good enough, although there was mitigation, it could be argued, in the absences brought about by the African Nations Cup, which hit them harder, with their thinner resources, than Chelsea.

There were other maybes for Moyes to reflect on. Perhaps he could have been bolder from the start, pushing harder for the early goal that might have exposed a little brittleness in Chelsea's nerve, instead of matching Chelsea's 4-2-3-1 formation.

Yet if he took away regrets to the dressing room, as the chance of Everton's first cup final for 13 years eluded him through Joe Cole's magnificently executed goal, there was nothing but generous encouragement from the crowd in another swelling of vocal support.