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There's an intriguing trait that Marco Silva's Everton will want to continue, well for just one more weekend anyway, as they prepare to welcome Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's Manchester United to Goodison Park this Sunday afternoon.

The trait

The trait, which has been a huge feature of the new manager's first season on Merseyside, has involved not always being able to get the job done in the Premier League against teams around and below the Toffees but then them pulling off fantastic results against sides higher than themselves.

This campaign, the Blue Half of Merseyside have registered five notable defeats against teams that were below them in the table at the time. These have come to West Ham United, Brighton & Hove Albion, Southampton, Newcastle United and most recently Fulham. There have also been draws with or narrow wins over Huddersfield and Cardiff.

Pair those results with wins or draws in encounters with the likes of Chelsea on two occasions, Liverpool and Arsenal and you have real evidence for that poor habit existing.

It's a bad trend that no team with high ambitions will want, but Silva should wait one more match before setting about putting an end to it for good.

The perfect example

Beating United this weekend would be the perfect example of the Sky Blues being Jekyll and Hyde against the bigger teams and the smaller ones, after having the chance to stop the pattern in its tracks last Saturday at Craven Cottage in a meeting with the already relegated Fulham.

However, characteristically, they couldn't take it and ended up losing out 2-0 to Scott Parker's men, suffering a huge setback in their quest to finish in seventh place in the process.

They can put that right this time around as they encounter an out-of-sorts Red Devils to keep the odd trend alive for one more week and move closer to being the best of the rest in the battle for seventh.

But moving forward and especially if they want to qualify for the UEFA Europa League, they need to learn how to defeat those around and below them on a regular basis.