IT seems that cup shocks are in the air after my old club Bradford City completed Mission Impossible to beat Aston Villa and get to Wembley.

What a fantastic effort that was, by the way, and the club definitely deserves their day in the sun because it has been through some tough, tough times in recent years.

That’s what the cup can do. You can be having a terrible time, and for some unexplained reason you manage to find some form in the cup and it affects everyone – the fans, the players, the staff. It spreads and it can do wonderful things.

This club has got a history in the FA Cup. Let’s not forget that.

Not many people are giving us a chance as we go into this weekend’s game against Everton. But this isn’t a Mission Impossible.

We said before the last round against Sunderland that playing against a Premier League side again might suit us. It is a different type of football than you find in the Championship and a few of our players thrived on that over the course of the two games.

We’ll have to find something extra to beat Everton because if they have to scrap and fight, they definitely will do. They have got the players to do the ugly things if necessary.

But can we beat them? Yes, I think we can.

I sense there is going to be a proper cup atmosphere at the Reebok, and I’m really looking forward to it.

I see the club reduced ticket prices for under-21s to a fiver and I think that was a good move. The way the ticket prices work out, that is the age that fans tend to drop off and go elsewhere.

This is the kind of match where people who haven’t been down to the ground for a while decide to come back and give it another go. A good result in that respect is priceless.

Times are tough and £20 isn’t cheap for anyone to come and watch a game of football – but if we’re in the hat for the fifth round, there won’t be many complaints.

The fans have got to give the players a chance too.

I think the way the team is at the moment, we can’t afford to be getting on top of the players at the first mistake. It just won’t do any good.

Sure, if things haven’t been good then have a boo or a moan and groan at the final whistle. But not one of those players will be going out looking to make a mistake, and getting on their back is only going to encourage more.

Along with that, Everton always bring good numbers. They will be loud, just as Sunderland’s fans were in the previous round.

That’s a challenge to our supporters. Can we get that kind of atmosphere back at the Reebok?

I was in that team 19 years ago that knocked Everton out of the FA Cup on that unforgettable night at Goodison.

That team didn’t know when they were beaten and to come back from 2-0 down at Everton was really something special Can we beat them again? Yes. Will it be difficult? Yes.

But we’ve got to believe it’s possible.”

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YOU can’t help but identify the lanky Marouane Fellaini as a threat for Everton, but it’s their little Belgian marvel I’d be more wary of.

It looks like Kevin Mirallas has timed his comeback from injury to play against us this weekend, and I was really impressed with him earlier in the season.

He’s good on the ball, has a goal in him, and he fits into that work ethic that David Moyes wants all over the pitch.

Everton don’t really have star individuals – even though you’ve got Steven Pienaar and Sylvain Distin at the back.

Nikica Jelavic was the one earlier in the season who you would have picked out, but he’s been really struggling for goals just recently.

He had a chance against Southampton that he would have absolutely gobbled up a few months ago, but right now he looks like a player low on confidence.

We’d better make sure he stays that way.

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PEOPLE have asked for ages whether David Moyes could leave Goodison Park and get the same sort of success elsewhere.

I have no doubt at all that he could, but I think he would genuinely consider leaving English football before taking a shot at a Manchester United or a Chelsea.

He has spoken in the past about managing in Spain or Germany and I could certainly see him doing that, broadening his horizons, and showing what a great manager he is.

What he has accomplished at Everton is unbelievable. They are a top-six team and he’s done it near enough on a bottom-six budget.

He has built a well-organised side that plays good football and, crucially, they are very hard to break down.

I think the time will come when he decides he has outgrown the club and passes the baton on to someone else.

But whoever takes over at Everton will be getting a very good team indeed.

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IF it hadn’t been for the snow this week, we’d have seen David Wheater make his comeback at Leyland – and not before time.

I’ll bet the medical staff are sick of the sight of him. But I, for one, can’t wait to see him back in action.

There’s no question we have missed him this last nine months, on the field and off it.

You can tell the lad is a big character and when things are down, as they have been so often since he injured his knee, sometimes you need someone just to lighten the mood and get the guys firing again.

On the pitch, he’s the kind of warrior who is so important at this level.

This isn’t a go at the lads who have been playing at the back, but I think they are players who want to “play.” They want to move the ball around, build from the back, and it’s not that easy in the Championship, as we have seen.

Maybe we need that little bit of extra strength back there. Wheater is that typical centre-half who’ll put his head in places most people won’t put their boots.

It will be interesting to see how Matt Mills figures when he gets back too.

I feel a bit for the lad because I know he’s a better player than we have seen so far. He got in the team but I don’t think he ever got fully fit and that meant he could never show Bolton fans what they had got for their money.

I hope his time comes too.

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DON’T write off how important that clean sheet against Crystal Palace could be for us in the long run.

That’s the big positive that came from Saturday’s game and it has been a long time coming away from home too.

Thirty-two games is too long to wait but when you see we also went to Sunderland – a Premier League side – and shut them out as well, I don’t think we should be too downbeat at all.

Yes, we need to address things at the other end of the park. There’s a fine balance to be struck.

At the moment we can set up to defend, use the two midfielders in front of the back four as a screen, and it works well in games like the one at Selhurst Park.

Whether we can marry that up with an attacking threat is the next question.

It sounds obvious but Dougie Freedman wants different things than Owen Coyle did – he sees players differently, wants them to play a different way. None of that happens overnight.

Some players take to that right away, others need drilling and nurturing before they get it, and some will never get it at all.

Repetition on the training ground is the only way to change things in the long run, and I think the team is gradually starting to learn in a defensive sense.

The next job is getting the goals to flow, getting that blend.

And that’s no easy job at all.