To be honest, it was a fairly strange (and very entertaining) game, with Blues looking for 22 minutes like a poor League Two side as they fell 2-0 behind, before going on to dominate the majority of the remainder of the game.
 
Alex McLeish made two changes from the team that had won at Portsmouth in the week, with Stephen Carr coming back for the injured Stuart Parnaby and Lee Bowyer unsurprisingly returning in place of the perhaps unlucky Michel.
 
When Yakubu headed home at the far post after 22 minutes to make it 2-0 to the visitors, had someone offered you a 5-0 defeat, you'd have probably taken it and gone home - Everton were that dominant and that impressive. 
 
Victor Anichebe had put them 1-0 up a couple of minutes previously, and it was his battle as a wide right forward with Blues' Liam Ridgewell that set the tone for the opening quarter.  It was a context between the two that, if you said Ridgewell came third or fourth, that'd still be generous.
 
It was clear that Everton targeted Ridgewell and aimed everything at Anichebe and he duly bullied Ridgewell for 20 minutes or so.  It was embarrassing at times.  Anichebe's power, pace, skill and ability really shocked Blues and Ridgewell, as well as probably shocking the travelling Everton fans given that he's usually crap.  For his goal, he cut inside Ridgewell far too easily before hitting a stunning left foot drive - it was a fine strike.
 
Ridgewell, to his credit, is a trier.  He may not be blessed with all the attributes of a top defender - he lacks a couple of inches in height, a couple of yards in pace, 20-30 points in his IQ and a few blades from his razor.  However, lesser men would have crumbled given the grilling Anichebe gave him.  To his credit though, he kept going, gradually got back in to the contest himself and began to help drive Blues forward.
 
Everton, at 2-0, seemed to commit the classic Blues' crime of settling for it.  Anichebe and Steven Pienaar who had supported Yakubu superbly in a 4-3-3 formation both dropped about 15 yards deeper and made it more of a 4-5-1.  They were 2-0 up early on and appeared content to sit back and settle for it.  Eighteen months ago, they'd have still gone on to win against Blues.  Not McLeish's "new Blues" though.
 
Since I've been watching Blues and, well, probably for a long time before that, there's always been this sense of "typical Blues" and "only at Blues".  Only at Blues would fans be let down and would the team lack bottle and would they throw away a good position by losing about eight games in a row.  Only at Blues.
 
However, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore - McLeish seems to have changed it.  Last week, at Portsmouth in the FA Cup, you sensed nothing had changed.  The defeat was "typical Blues".  However, the old, typical Blues would then have fallen apart for the rest of the season.  Instead, three days later they went to the very same ground, tore the same opposition apart and won.  Not-so-typical Blues.
 
Then, a few days after that, they were 2-0 down at home to a good Everton side and staring a hammering in the face.  Good old typical Blues would have lost 4-0 and the season would have fallen apart.  However, they came back, made it 2-2 with about 40 minutes left and will probably be disappointed with a point in the end.  Not-so-typical Blues.
 
Blues first was courtesy of someone.  I think it was Keith Fahey, although Cameron Jerome and others think it was courtesy of Cameron Jerome.  To be honest, on first viewing and a few replays on the big screen, I still think that I, in row 37 of the Kop, was about as close to connecting to Fahey's cross as Jerome was, and so have as much of a claim on the goal was Jerome did, but let's be honest, it doesn't really matter.
 
Now, you may think that me trying to scrub a goal off his record is just typical of the venom I have shown towards him lately.  Not so, I can assure you.  After the Wigan and Portsmouth (FA Cup) games, I slated him in my reports.  However, he took one of his goals in the week very well (the first) and was there to score the second too.  He also looked better all round.
 
Again, against Everton, he was much better.  He was a long way off being man of the match, as voted for by 28% of the fans, but he was much better.  He moved with more purpose and he actually let defenders know he was about.  I've been saying for months that it'd be nice if he actually hurt someone and let them know he was about.  He started in the week at Portsmouth by hurting a fan in Row A, and continued here by letting Sylvain Distin know he was in a game.  He clattered in to Johnny Heitinga (top player) late on too, but in typical Jerome fashion, was the first player there to help him up and checked he was ok on three occasions in the next 30 seconds.
 
Perhaps my recent criticism was a little OTT, although I still think most of it is borne out of frustration based on what Jerome CAN do, as we see on rare occasions.  Whilst I feel it was right to point out how dreadful he was against Wigan and Portsmouth (Episode One), it's only right for me to point out how much better he's been against Portsmouth (Episode Two) and Everton.
 
Blues' second was a fine first time strike by Craig Gardner after Jerome competed well in the air.  Gardner's strike showed the benefit of sometimes just having a go at goal first time, because the goalkeeper won't be set.  Tim Howard wasn't, and he was beaten easily.  Blues can sometimes be a little reluctant to let fly from distance, and perhaps this will encourage them a little more in future.
 
As I mentioned, Jerome was, however, a long way from being Blues' man of the match or the game's man of the match.  Blues' man of the match by a country mile was Barry Ferguson, who was one of the game's top two performers alongside his former Rangers teammate Mikel Arteta.
 
The two of them were a joy to watch, dictating the game for the respective teams from a relatively deep position.  Ferguson didn't get forward quite as much as Arteta, but the two of them were both magnificent and taking the ball and getting things moving for their respective teams.  Heitinga and Bowyer too were both excellent - it was a compelling midfield battle.
 
When you're in the midst of something, it's hard to really take on board what is happening, and you either only realise afterwards, with the benefit of hindsight, or you never really appreciate it and just take it for granted.  I think that's the case with some of Blues' football this season.  Yes, we all realise we're playing much better football, but step back for a second and think about how incredible that is, in the circumstances.
 
Firstly, for whatever reason, in the past 25 years Blues have never really been a footballing side - it doesn't fit with their culture.  I'm not even sure how that happens, given that it spans all sorts of managers, but clubs do develop a sort of club-style, regardless of the players and managers.  I know it's a cliché, but it's fair to say that both Spurs and West Ham have a reputation for playing decent football, whereas Blues were probably more in the Sunderland type mould - often efficient and effective, but rarely easy on the eye.
 
Secondly, consider the sort of football Blues played last season under McLeish in the Championship.  It was genuinely awful.  Despite promotion, it was one of the least entertaining seasons I have ever witnessed, and even after the Reading game, when you looked back at the season as a whole, it was an ordeal rather than a pleasure.
 
So, to fast forward six to nine months and to see Blues outplaying a side like Everton for long periods of a game, and putting in the first half display that they did at Portsmouth, etc, etc, is, well, unbelievable. 
 
Ferguson has been the key.  Of that, there is no doubt.  His composure on the ball from deep in midfield, his ability to take the ball in tight situations and find himself an extra yard of space or extra second on the ball, and then his sensible, cool and calm subsequent use of that ball makes the entire Blues team tick.  He's been a revelation.  Interestingly, he only got going after 22 minutes or so in this game, having been poor as Everton dominated.  As he got going, so Blues got going.
 
Everton are a good side.  I still expect them to finish above Blues this season.  They have top, top players and are, currently, playing very well.  In the past three months they've beaten Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City at home, also drawing 3-3 at Arsenal and probably deserving to win there.
 
In that period, Blues have faced them three times, drawing twice in the league and winning away at Goodison Park.  None of those results were flukes, and all were probably fair results (though perhaps Blues were a bit lucky in the first league game).  A team can fluke one result, and sometimes even do so twice in a season, but to perform over the three games suggests more than that.
 
It is fantastic that Blues are at a stage where they can now compete on the pitch with a fine side like Everton - not just on a one-off basis, but over three games in about three months.  If anything, something like that is as good an illustration as to how far Blues have come under McLeish - not in the past two and a half years, but just in the past nine months. 
 
As I said above, it's unbelievable really.