Finally. For the first time in this tumultuous, topsy-turvy campaign, we finally went out and absolutely battered an opponent. Yes, yes, there are the small matters of allowing Rooney to score—although, let’s face facts: that has more to do with being polite to our hosts than anything else. It would be rude of us to say the least to arrive at Goodison Park so soon after Rooney deigned to return there himself without letting him score. There are social niceties to uphold, after all. Good on him for reminding Evertonians of what might have been had he not bolted at the first chance. I will say though that we were more than a bit generous in gifting a second late one. That almost takes a bit too far, akin to being invited to dinner only to stay long enough to do the dishes and walk the dog. So be it. Arsenal finally found a way to thrash someone.

Okay, so, yes. It was Everton. On one hand, they’re the only club who have played Man City and not lost. On the other, they’re already looking at firing Koeman after conceding 18 goals whilst only scoring seven. It’s almost as if the sale of Lukaku for £76m took away some portion of their ability to score goals, and the consequent additions of Pickford, Sigurðsson, and Keane for a combined £90m or so was only done to troll the Toffees faithful—”I say, lads, why don’t we sell the only player in the squad who scores goals and plow the proceeds into setting a club-record for signing a keeper, eh? What’s that? Not good enough? Why then, we’ve money to burn. I hear that players with accents in their names are all the rage. Let’s get Sigurðsson. He was good enough for Tottenham during the ‘banter era’, so he must be worth a pretty penny”.

And so on.

More to the point, this trip to Goodison Park might mark a turning point (and dear God, I hope it does). Aside from the trip to Stamford Bridge, from which we took a well-earned draw, we’ve not looked all that convincing. Even as we went undefeated across seven matches, even as we’ve comfortably dominated our Europa League group, we’ve only ever looked as comfortable as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking-chairs.

We had to know that this match had to stand as a threshold. Having lost away to Watford, we were a bit fortunate to see Red Star get reduced to ten men, and we had to right the ship before it sank. From the outset, we looked determined and confident, at times even swash-buckling, against Everton. Rooney’s goal, coming as it did against the run of play, might have obliterated that confidence, as such goals have done all too often in recent years. Instead, we fought back, and we fought back hard. It was only through a bit of gifted goal-keeping, combined with some rather tame shot-taking, that we didn’t go into halftime up 1-3 or so.

We’ve had an unfortunate tendency of playing up or down to the level of our opponents, and this one had all the makings of the latter. Koeman’s men knew that they had to show some semblance of pride after a horrow-show of a start, and so we faced the oxymoronic situation of choosing between playing down to our opponent’s past performances or up to its present needs. Thankfully, we chose the latter, slicing open and eviscerating the kind of opponent that has all too often mutated from a cake-walk into a banana-peel

If—and this a rather-large “if”—we can just find a way to play with the kind of verve, intent, and, yes, joy that we showed on Sunday, we could create a wave of confidence and momentum that will carry us into the Etihad ready to prove that we are not yet ready to be written off. Without looking past Norwich, Swansea, or Red Star,  we have to know that finding our form is crucial.

Seeing Ramsey, Lacazette, Alexis, and Özil link up for the first time was sexy as hell. To see them do so again (and again) could be the story of the season.