SAM Allardyce is not the only manager in the Premiership to have agonised over what might have been.

In his case the torment comes from having seen his happy Wanderers lose three consecutive home games but for Walter Smith, who takes his Everton team to the Reebok on Saturday, the frustration is aimed at Lady Luck.

The Goodison boss is convinced that misfortune has conspired against the Toffees and, although he is not complaining, he feels they should be in a much higher position.

The Blues started off the season brightly, picking up seven points in their first three games, before being brought down to earth by three defeats in a row.

But the results - notably their 1-0 defeat at Blackburn - were not fair reflections of their performances.

"Well I think like every other team you always look at what might have been. I don't think that so far this season anyone would have begrudged us a few more points in the games that we have played, but that's not to be."

The Blues boss continued: "We've had games recently where we've been, if anything, slightly the better side and haven't come away with any points or managed to get one when we could have got three, so we could be slightly further up the league."

The Reebok encounter will mean a Reebok return for Alan Stubbs, the former Wanderers' skipper, who left for Celtic in a £3.5 million deal in May 1998.

He won a string of major honours as the Bhoys put their Glasgow rivals, Rangers, in the shade and beat a cancer scare before joining Everton - the club he has supported since his schooldays - in the closed season.