Everton have developed an alarming tendency to fold meekly at their new £800 million home, and after a bright beginning to life on the Liverpool waterfront, recent results there have been very poor.
Comprehensive defeats to Tottenham, Newcastle United, and now Brentford have seen the Toffees ship eleven goals at the Hill Dickinson Stadium in just those three matches alone.
The last success Everton managed at home was a 3-0 win over struggling Nottingham Forest on the 6th December, a month ago.
Ironically, after there has been so much said about the Toffees strikers struggling, both got a goal, with first Beto and then Thierno Barry finding the back of the net against Brentford, although it was no more than a consolation.
It was the normally reliable defence that was most at fault, and that should be a concern for David Moyes. Both centre-backs, James Tarkowski and Michael Keane, looked vulnerable, and Vitalli Mykolenko had an afternoon to truly forget.
Such a state of affairs might well make it more worthwhile for Everton to dip into the transfer market for defensive help, with Manchester City's Nathan Ake, a player who could help out both in central defence and at left-back.
While their performance was certainly poor on Sunday, Everton do have some mitigating circumstances for such a bad result, most of all the absence of Idrissa Gueye and Iliman Ndiaye at the Africa Cup of Nations, and the ongoing injury to Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
As a result, Moyes was forced to have several youth team players on the bench on Sunday, and has also brought midfielder Harrison Armstrong back from his loan at Preston.
However, he did have one of his summer signings to bring on, and young German Merlin Rohl got another chance to impress his manager. He did not take it, though, and had a very poor outing.
So all this once more provides further evidence that Everton do need to go back into the transfer market this month if they can and try to strengthen both in key positions and also to improve the quality and depth of the squad overall.