What we learned: Dundee 0 - 4 Everton

Everton’s pre-season fixture list started with a 4-0 triumph over Dundee at Dens Park.

It was hardly the most thrilling of matches, but it capped off a solid, tough week of training for the squad, with Beto, Thierno Barry, Harvey Foster and Dwight McNeil on target.

Here’s a few talking points.

GOALS ARE GOOD

It’s the old cliché: results don’t matter in pre-season.

That being said, had Everton lost to a Scottish Premiership team — even one that is well on with their own pre-season preparations — it’s easy to imagine plenty of the fanbase losing the plot. It just makes everything look grimmer.

So, to get a big win, even if three of the goals were gifted to Everton by Dundee’s goalkeeper and the other one — Beto’s opener — came via a big deflection, can only be seen as a positive.

 

RIGHT-BACK ISSUE COMES HOME TO ROOST

It’s not acceptable that Everton started pre-season without a right-back having been signed. To compound the issue, Nathan Patterson is still on his post-World Cup break, and with David Moyes being cautious over Jarrad Branthwaite’s return to action, and with James Garner nursing a slight niggle, it meant Merlin Röhl had to play at right-back.

Not that Jake O’Brien or Garner should be seen as right-backs either, but neither should Röhl, and while it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of this game, it does just show up how slow Everton have been to act. Trying isn’t good enough: Go and get a right-back in, and do it urgently.

 

HACKNEY’S FITNESS HAS TO BE MANAGED

We’ll see Hayden Hackney soon enough, but the new signing was missing from the matchday squad, with Everton emphasising that he is working his way back to full fitness.

Hackney did, after all, sustain an injury towards the end of last season, which limited him to just a cameo appearance for Middlesbrough in the Championship play-off final.

 

THAT KIT IS LOVELY

I’m not one of those who are particularly fussed about kits. As long as Everton play their home games in blue, I tend to be pretty happy.

But I have to say, as much as I think Everton can do better than Castore for long-term kit providers, the pinstriped, white away strip is a thing of beauty. Some lovely touches to it, too. Good work.

Read more - David Moyes: To renew or not to renew

 

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