Everton V Albion

The game is, as the cliché instructs, all about results and, more than that, about scorelines. On the face of it, it looks as through Albion took a drubbing at Goodison and certainly the Toffees were the side deserving of their three points on the day. But look a little beyond the three goal difference and you’ll find a game that was much closer than 3-0 suggests and a performance that was far sparkier than the one against Palace a week before.

In the end, the game was settled in the way it so often is at the top of the Premier League, by world class ability, by Barkley, homegrown at Goodison, and by Lukaku, the kind of towering talent that cost Everton the fists full of fivers that we couldn’t muster four years ago. While defeat on Merseyside was a bitter pill to swallow, that medicine was instructive when it comes to the strides we still have to make to finally, and consistently, bridge the gap at the very peak of the game.

It’s those moments that transform games as well as the predator’s instinct to sense when to go in for the kill and, more important, to make it happen. That was how Everton pounced in the few minutes up to half-time, taking away from us a game that, had it been 0-0 at the break, might well have been very different, for the natives were certainly becoming restless at their inability to break down a resolute Albion side.

For much of that half, the Throstles had implemented a gameplan that involved keeping the Toffees in front of us, giving them no opportunity to get in behind us and exploit the pace, power and finishing expertise that they have at the top end of the pitch.

The first time they managed to do that was some 16 minutes in, courtesy of a beautifully threaded pass from Barry into Lukaku who dragged his shot across the face of the goal but just wide of the far post.