I've been trying to tell myself this, further ahead with one fewer game for anyone to claw it back.
Still pretty galling how close it was to being 3 and also of course having to see them happy, though the latter bit isn't relevant objectively speaking of course.
If they'd somehow manifested the equaliser through sheer force of will I suppose there would be maybe a grain of unspoken, grudging acknowledgement but as others have said they were gone and any remotely normal refereeing of the time added on sees us home and hosed.
He just didn't want to be the fella who killed the narrative by calling time on the last Goodison derby with them losing. Another one who thinks he is there to engineer a spectacle as opposed to just applying the laws. Any other scoreline and he gives that foul on Salah, I'm convinced of it.
As for their fans, I've been trying to think back to when I was a kid and whether they were that weird then and whilst I think stuff has come to the fore in the last 25 years or so for various reasons it has always been there. There most famous Wembley performance was a pitch invader, for f***'s sake.