Key players perform for Everton as Toffees find winning formula at home

Everton finally ended their terrible record at home this season with a comprehensive 3-0 win over Bournemouth yesterday afternoon.

It was arguably the best and most complete performance of the campaign as the Blues dominated their visitors and could and should have won by more.

Apart from the obvious point that it was pleasing to see Everton win at last at the Grand Old Lady, there were several important individual performances for manager Sean Dyche to build on.

To start with for the first time this season the Toffees kept a clean sheet and this was in considerable part to the continued excellence of Jarrad Branthwaite at centre-back.

Alongside his vastly experienced partner James Tarkowkski, the 21-year-old has been a revelation and once again showed class, maturity and superb defending yesterday.

The England Under-21 international has just signed a new contract keeping him at Everton for the foreseeable future, which is great news.

If he keeps performing like this, how long will it be before he must surely be on the senior England team manager Gareth Southgate’s radar?

Having a defence that can keep clean sheets is actually something we had expected to see from a Dyche managed side when he succeeded Frank Lampard.

But instead, while Everton’s attack has actually been more creative (at least in terms of stats like XG) since the former Burnley boss took over, defensively the team has declined in effectiveness.

Now, let’s hope that his back four can maintain that solidity going forward.

In midfield Dyche also finally gave James Garner a chance in the centre of midfield and he once again shone scoring the Blues first goal too.

Alongside him was Amadou Onana, whom I wanted to see given the opportunity to play Garner as he had done at Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup.

However, it emerged that Dyche’s first choice had been Idrissa Gueye to play along with Garner and Abdoulaye Doucoure.

But, Gueye was injured and so Onana replaced him in the team, which without wishing to sound as though I am pleased, was a piece of good fortune because Onana had a fine game and should stay alongside Garner.

Finally, Dominic Calvert-Lewin was again the attacking pivot around which the rest of the side could play off. Although he didn’t score, it was still a strong all-round centre-forward performance.

And crucially, he came through another Premier League game uninjured. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed he can continue to do this.