THERE comes a point in every season when clairvoyance and mathematics become just as much a part of every football fan's life as tickets and travel details.
Supporters spend just as much time wondering where their team will pick up and drop points, studying the fixture list over and over again in the desperate hope that the goal they have been dreaming of all year will be realised.
Players and management, on the other hand, tend to stick the old cliché about not looking further than the next game but Lee Carsley is only too happy to admit that he is completely different.
With six matches to go and Champions League place still within touching distance, Carsley knows every nuance of what both Everton and Liverpool have to tackle before the final ball of the campaign is kicked on May 11.
Having emerged victorious at Anfield last weekend, it is clearly ‘Advantage Liverpool’ at present and, if bookmakers’ odds are anything to go by, Fernando Torres may have inflicted a fatal blow to Everton’s dreams of clinching fourth spot.
Carsley, though, is not the kind of person who will give up without a fight and while many believe the Blues should be worrying more at Portsmouth gaining ground on them, he - rightly - is more interested in bridging the gap with their neighbours.
Picking up one point from the last nine available has made things difficult - and there is absolutely no margin for error against Derby County this weekend - but Carsley has warned anyone who is considering writing Everton off to think again.
