Dyche and players must build on Bees win to resuscitate Everton season

Everton finally won their first Premier League match of the campaign on Saturday beating Brentford 3-1 to secure a much-needed three points.

There was a palpable sense of relief at the final whistle that the Blues had at last won a game in this current season after looking increasingly unlikely to ever do so.

Now, the key question is, can Everton boss Sean Dyche and his players find a way to maintain the kind of energy, intensity and quality that we saw in West London at the weekend.

As I wrote in my match report there were a lot of similarities with the spectacular 5-1 demolition of Brighton late last season.

The Toffees produced another strong all-round performance away from home, were dangerous and threatening up front and took chances that they had previously been unable to convert.

And, as at the Amex in May there strong showings from several key players such as Abdoulaye Doucoure who in both games scored from a volley and on Saturday could and should have had a second.

Of course the challenge now once again is to find a way to reproduce that type of performance on a consistent basis.

That sounds improbable to put it mildly and let’s be honest I doubt anyone imagines this Everton team can keep playing that solidly and scoring goals as freely week in week out.

But, Dyche does need to try and ensure that these sorts of efforts are not an occasional one-off that puncuates a series of otherwise badly underwhelming performances and results. The season’s outcome may depend on it.

At the weekend the Blues boss tweeked his favoured 4-5-1 formation pushing Doucoure further forward to give his lone striker Beto some much-needed support, something that was conspicuously not the case against Arsenal.

Again I have long advocated this and it was effective with Doucoure actually proving the Toffees most dangerous attacking player.

Beto though while he worked hard, should have opened his account and missed several one great chance when put through by Idrissa Gueye.

Whether this move will work consistently is open to question and I would still like to see Beto partnered with Calvert-Lewin (something Calvert-Lewin is keen on) but that would mean one of Dyche’s three central midfielders would have to be sacrificed.

The other change was bringing James Garner back on the right hand side in place of Arnaut Danjuma.

The Dutch attacker might have been considered unlucky as he has performed reasonably well recently but he lost his place.

Garner did well playing as a deep-lying wider midfielder and provided the cross for James Tarkowki’s header that Doucoure volleyed for his goal, and he won the ball back which led to Calvert-Lewin’s winner.

One thing that stands out since Dyche took over as manager in January has been the increasing contrast between his side’s home and away form.

Straight after he succeeded Frank Lampard Everton won two of their first four league games at Goodison Park, but then only managed only another two more all season. And of course in this campaign his team hasn’t even secured a point at home.

However, the Toffees away form has improved on the recent past with draws at Nottingham Forest, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Leicester City and Wolves and that big win at Brighton last season and now Brentford last weekend.

The challenge for Dyche and his players is to translate the kind of intensity, energy and precision which we saw on Saturday, to the Grand Old Lady.

If he can then it just might turn around the trajectory of this season, which up until Brentford was going downhill very fast.

If not, then the Blues will probably be locked in another season-long struggle against the drop and I fear this will be the campaign their luck runs out.