IT MIGHT not be the most pressing task for those atomic scientists charged with discovering the key to all human life in Geneva, but there’s another mystery out there almost as unfathomable.
And if David Moyes could find the reason why his Everton team are such notorious slow starters in the Premier League, he would probably jig along the Goodison touchline with the vigour of someone who finds a winning lottery ticket in his pocket outside the dole office.
It’s not like Moyes hasn’t searched methodically for the answer. He has continually stripped down and reassembled his pre-season planning over the last few years, grasping for a flaw or hidden factor behind the problem.
He even flew to the other side of the globe in 2010 to try and shake things up down under, wondering if his favoured US tours were going stale. Still his team started their league campaign with form so chequered they had effectively hamstrung any European ambitions by the season’s half-way point.
This pre-season, it was back to the USA and a far shorter tour, and results have generally been positive, even if Everton’s performances haven’t sizzled with promise. But if Moyes could lose every pre-season game only to start the serious business with a string of wins he surely would.
A strong start – or at the very least not a morale-sagging, rotten one – is more important than ever this time around.
Nobody would suggest everything is perfect with the club behind the scenes at Goodison. Everyone knows that finances are too tight, and Everton’s best players will continue to be seen as available for poaching by the cash-rich big boys.
And yes, new signings this summer could have sparked more from the current squad as well as simply bolstering a group of senior players that is extremely compact to say the least.
But Moyes is the master of turning circumstances on their head, he has proved it time and time again.
The high-point of his reign so far, that odds-defying fourth place finish in 2005, was achieved after he was forced to sell the brightest prospect in English football for a generation.
History proves Moyes does not give in, and neither do his teams. And history is something the Blues boss can lay claim to now – he will celebrate his 10th anniversary in the Goodison hot-seat this summer.
So there is a feeling that something tangible must happen in this forthcoming 2011/12 campaign.
If Moyes is tiring of going to the well and back time and time again, this could be one final, forceful push towards the stars.
Once dubbed the best pound for pound manager in the league, this could be time for him to deliver his Hollywood punch – a blow against the cards that stuns everyone like Julian Jackson’s on Herol Graham in 1990.
There is a feeling that fate is about to play its hand. Many optimists suggested that last season was going to be the special one. It was, they hoped, the time when Everton – having kept hold of their best players and consolidated on another thrilling post Christmas recovery – would break into the top four.
Even Alex Ferguson tipped his hat towards the Blues when asked for his Champions League qualification outsiders.
Those optimists won’t be as numerous or vocal at the moment, but they would do well not to write Everton off either.
At the time of going to press, there may have been no marquee signings – or indeed any incomings at all in L4 – but Moyes’ current squad remain as determined to upset the odds.
There is a steely core of talented veterans who, if pushed, might admit their time is running out to lift silverware with Everton, and they will now be more focused and hungrier than ever before.
Phil Neville at 34, Time Cahill at 31, and Mikel Arteta at 29, are held in the highest of regards by their manager and supporters alike.
What a crying shame it would be if those three, not to mention Tony Hibbert and Leon Osman, both 30, did not get to share in a notch on the Goodison honour board.
All of them deserve something, whether it’s a trophy or a fantastic season that propels the club back into Europe against all those mounting odds.
Wouldn’t it be special if between them – and their ever scheming, ever success-hungry manager – they made it happen this season.
Instead of discussing transfer funds and a season of frustration on the periphery of success thanks to a dismal start, everyone associated with the club could be looking back with deep satisfaction come next May.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Moyes could dust off the cardigan and champagne flutes he memorably produced on TV in May, 2005.
Who knows? There’s only one certainty – you can’t write off David Moyes’ Everton.
