Sean Dyche was left to count the cost of more than just the massive dent Everton took to their goal difference and team morale with their 6-0 annihilation at the hands of Chelsea, with three players picking up injuries that make them doubts for next Sunday’s massive game against Nottingham Forest.
The Blues came into this evening’s fixture at Stamford Bridge six better off than Forest in terms of goal difference but had that potentially precious advantage erased amid one of the worst defensive performances ever by an Everton side in the Premier League era.
Cole Palmer helped himself to four goals and could have had two more while Nicholas Jackson and Aflie Gilchrist scored the others as Mauricio Pochettino’s side exploited the void in the visitors’ midfield and their dreadful defending to run rio at Stamford Bridge.
The chastening result was made worse by the fact that Seamus Coleman was forced off at the break with a groin strain and Nathan Patterson suffered a hamstring tear that might have prematutely ended his start-stop season.
In between, Jarrad Branthwaite hobbled off with an unspecified problem that Dyche says he and his staff hope is only minor.
Dyche rightly described it to evertontv as “a horrible defeat, probably the worst of my career. That’s just an awful night.
“We came here with a high expectation of taking them on. Bizarrely, we actually started the game really well, exactly what we wanted to do – make them uncomfortable. We had a chance in the first minute.
“But we can’t defend like that. There was no fight in the defending, no detail in the defending, not the hard yards or tackling. It was like shadow football [for] their goals and that’s miles off the mark.
“The players know I work on two presses – you can’t just press once. You press and if they play past you, then press back into your position. As soon as they played past us, everyone’s just lagging staring at the game.
“I think the last time we were miles off was at Villa away. The good thing was that it gave us a stark reminder and we need to use this as a stark reminder. It certainly has me because I’m looking at the players.
“Because that’s absolutely nowhere near good enough or acceptable – from me either. I’m the manager… players, staff… that’s not acceptable.
“I can’t understand what I’ve just seen but we’ve got to make sense of it and brush it off quickly because the next one is a big game without a shadow of a doubt.”
Meanwhile, James Tarkowski, whose form as notably dipped in recent weeks and who was poor as anyone in salmon pink on the night, told Sky Sports that he was embarrassed by Everton’s showing.
“As a team, we underperformed,” the defender admitted. “This is the most embarrassed I have felt as an individual and as part of a team.
“It shows where we are at today, and we can only apologise to the fans who spent their hard-earned money travelling the country and supporting us.
“It is on the players. You can’t start pointing fingers at the manager and the staff. No excuses on our behalf.”