It is often said that in the kingdom of the mediocre even a barely competent team will build bricks from straw and duly prosper.
Both Everton and West Ham United are, indeed, competent, but in a division which is liberally strewn with the mediocre and the downright incompetent, neither can seriously expect to trouble the Premiership's elite come the season's end.
As West Ham's manager Harry Redknapp observed afterwards, this was a game which always seemed destined to finish goalless. He was right, too.
"I thought it was going to be a draw - it looked a banker 0-0 to me," he said. "I just couldn't see them getting a goal from anywhere: I never felt we were under any real pressure."
It rained and it rained and it rained, so reducing an admirable playing surface to a treacherous one on which to try to produce anything that was even remotely appealing.
Everton were diligent and uncommonly tidy in midfield, particularly the latest addition to the true blue roster, Abel Xavier - Portuguese, young and, perhaps worryingly, already much-travelled.
West Ham enjoyed the better openings in the first half, simply because they opted to try their luck at every opportunity. Paulo Wanchope twice went close during this period, steering in low and hard from distance and then sprinting clear of the Everton defence, only to be denied by the alertness of their goalkeeper, Paul Gerrard.
Everton always struggled to transform possession into something of tangible worth, but in Kevin Campbell and Francis Jeffers they possessed two forwards who work well in tandem.
Once the rain had eased off to a mere downpour, Everton emerged blinking into the daylight like a hibernating animal prematurely awakened from its deep slumber. But they still couldn't summon up a real sense of urgency although belatedly they did at least begin to appreciate that the onus was on them to seek out an end to the stalemate.
With a slightly increased work-rate came a cluster of chances, Nick Barmby and Jeffers both being denied by Shaka Hislop. But Hislop's afternoon had peaked rather early and it was to be his basic error on 65 minutes which was to finally settle a strangely soulless scrap.
Barmby's dart forwards into the penalty area was sufficiently incisive to see the West Ham defence part, but unable to find the room in which to deliver his shot, he allowed Jeffers to take possession. Time was still short and space still tight, so Jeffers swung his boot back with youthful exuberance. Hislop dropped down smartly, only to permit the ball to roll from beneath the outstretched fingers of his left hand.
And that, as Redknapp was to wryly observe afterwards, was that. "Our goalkeeper does so well for us so, to be honest, he is entitled to make one or two mistakes every year," he said.
EVERTON: Gerrard, Unsworth (Gemmill 41), Weir, Gough, Dunne, Xavier, Hutchison (Ball 38), Collins, Barmby, Jeffers (Cleland 90), Campbell. Subs Not Used: Cadamarteri, Simonsen. Booked: Dunne, Barmby. Goals: Jeffers 64.
WEST HAM UTD: Hislop, Keller, Stimac, Potts, Margas, Moncur, Lomas, Lampard, Sinclair, Di Canio, Wanchope. Subs Not Used: Kitson, Foe, Carrick, Forrest, Newton. Booked: Stimac, Di Canio, Lampard.
Referee: S Bennett (Orpington).
