WITH HIS considered, gentle manner and ultra-disciplined approach to his profession Steven Naismith is the last player you’d expect to lose it on a football pitch.

Anyone tempted to judge on appearances would perhaps be less surprised that Marouane Fellaini, with his intimidating frame, angular physique, and previous rap sheet might occasionally swing a powerful elbow at an overly physical opponent.

But not Naismith.

Not the 26-year-old with a reputation for a keen social conscience, highlighted by his generosity to Liverpool’s homeless this week, and butter-wouldn’t-melt looks.

However, the former Rangers man was the first to express sympathy to his Belgian team-mate in the post-game controversy of his head-butt on Stoke’s Ryan Shawcross last Saturday.

Naismith himself is currently serving a two-game international ban for an off-the-ball elbow incident with Serbia's Srdan Mijailovic in a Scotland qualifier at Hampden in September.

In reality, Fellaini is also the laid-back sort and not one prone to aggression, so what is it that makes top players snap?

“I think you go onto the park trying to do everything you can, wanting to win,” says the former Kilmarnock attacker. “Your adrenaline is so high and you’re working your hardest. Every so often the red mist comes and that’s all it was. Straight after the game Felli apologised to the manager.

“There are different things that go on in games and yes, Stoke are a physical team but that’s the way they play. Felli did what he did and that was part of it. Even if you look at the match on Saturday Stoke’s players just got on with it, they expect a tough physical game.

“Felli knew he’d done wrong. He has to deal with his punishment and move on.”

Naismith believes the absence of Everton’s top scorer, while being a highly inconvenient blow, could also represent opportunity to Everton’s first-team fringe men.

“He’s done fantastically well for us this season but you’ve got to see it as giving other people in the squad a chance to go out and do what they can, to show the manager they were worth buying,” he says.

“I’m sure the players who play against West Ham will do as good a job as anyone else in the squad.

“There’s no doubt Felli will be missed but we have to cope without him and that’s what we’ll do. The manager has built a squad to compete in every game, under any circumstances whether it’s injuries or suspensions and this is one of those times. I’m sure the manager will have a game plan against West Ham and then whoever comes in will have a chance to step up and make an impact and try and stay in the team.”

West Ham are in 11th place in the table, just four points behind the Blues in sixth, and Naismith is keenly aware of the tight-nature of the Premier League in his first season in England.

Some Evertonians misconstrued an interview he gave to the Scottish press recently as the forward implying there is less pressure on Everton to win every game than there is on his former club, Rangers.

On the contrary, insists the man himself. “There’s pressure going into every game here, as players and especially under the manager who has shown over the last 10 years that he expects the best and you’ve got to be there.

“It’s a league where there are such fine margins between the teams and anyone can drop points here and there. That shows the competition with the top 10 teams in the Premier League and everyone wants those top four spots.

“There is a difference between the quality players you’re coming up against and the teams you’re facing. Every game has the pressure to win and that’s your main goal as every player. The manager’s expectations and standards are so high that you’ve got to meet them.

“What I’ve found is that in the Premier League there are so many games that are so close and it’s either a mistake or a moment of genius that changes it and makes the difference. That’s why you have to be at your best.

“At Everton we do it as a collective, as a team and we’ve shown that by scoring goals from every different position while we have people making last ditch tackles too. We work as a team and all strive for the best.”

That is precisely what Naismith wants to do at Upton Park on Saturday, when the task of overcoming Sam Allardyce’s men faces them.

“They’ve got a few big players but also they kept a lot of their players when they went down and that has stood them in good stead when they came back up into the Premier League.

“West Ham have shown in their results that they’re a difficult team to beat at home and their results at Chelsea proved they’re no mugs.

“They definitely deserve respect and we need to be at our best. If we have any aspirations of getting in the top four that’s what we need to do.

“We know we’ll have to be at our best - it’s something the manager drills into us every single day.”

After all the rough-stuff at Stoke - is Naismith dreading another combative slog in East London? Not at all - in fact, he’s relishing it.

“It doesn’t take too long to recover,” he says. “It maybe looks more grinding on TV than it actually is.

“I don’t think I have played against a side that’s probably as physical as Stoke. But they’ve gone from a team that was promoted not so long ago to being a promoted Premier League team. It’s a style they’ve got which works for them so you can’t fault it at all.

“It was a very tough game but we could have won it if we’d scored that second goal.

“It never came but at least we showed that we could defend well and that’s part of it - we’ll take that forward.”