Aston Villa 1 Everton 2: Toffees through to league cup fourth round

After comprehensively defeating Brentford 3-1 on Saturday, Everton followed it up with another away win as they saw off Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup third round tonight.

Goals from James Garner and the excellent Dominic Calvert-Lewin were enough, despite a late wobble, to see off the Villans and take the Blues into the next round.

As at the weekend, Everton produced a fine performance on their travels and deserved to win again, although Villa rallied late on to make it a nervous end to the match.

I wrote earlier this week that Sean Dyche and his players had to find a way to maintain the intensity and quality that we saw at Brentford and also had seen occasionally late last season, especially in the 5-1 win at Brighton.

Not easy for sure, but if the Toffees could play with greater consistency and replicate at least to some extent those efforts, they might be able to turn around a season which after the Arsenal defeat, was already looking lost.

Tonight the Blues were well worthy of their win and outplayed a Villa side that only a few weeks ago had demolished Everton 4-0 on this same ground.

Unsurprisngly, Dyche decided this evening to experiment with his team and tactics, to some extent at least.

So, Micheal Keane came back into the team at centre-back alongside James Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite, who has been such a revelation since coming into the side.

This might have been a cause for concern given Keane’s regular lapses and costly mistake-prone performances when he has previously played.

But, the defence was solid enough, although Villa didn’t really trouble the Toffees backline too much until late on.

In midfield Garner partnered Amadou Onana and they were a solid pair, with Garner in particular once again excellent as he raidly becomes undroppable.

While he was good operating on the flank at the weekend, central midfield is his favoured position where Garner can best utilise his passing ability.

His form is possibly going to give Dyche a further welcome problem as to how to get all his midfielders into the team.

The former Manchester United youth product opened the scoring with a fine strike on the fifteenth minute and he could have had a second too.

Leading the line, Calvert-Lewin was dynamic and a constant threat and he capped off his night with the second goal, picking up the ball, driving forward and slotting it home.

Will he continue to start up front when Everton host Luton Town next or will Dyche stick with his new Portuguese striker Beto? Another question for the manager to ponder.

All in all then a satisfying night for the Blues and some much-needed new found confidence to take into the next two huge Premier League games at home.