Everton plunged into crisis by a nine-minute meltdown

If nothing else, Everton contrived to make the worst start in their history even worse.

- RICHARD JOLLY

They found a different way of losing, even as Sean Dyche maintained the wrong sort of 100 per cent record. They have played six Premier League games in August under him, losing each one.

Dycheball is apparently not a summer sport – he began with a 12.5 per cent win rate in the top flight in the month, and after an extraordinary Bournemouth comeback, it was lower still.

And if Everton spent 86 minutes making a case that they were not the season’s first crisis club, the subsequent meltdown suggested otherwise. There were three Bournemouth goals in nine minutes, and there could have been three more. Everton had conceded three to Brighton, four to Tottenham, but this time the defensive deficiencies came after leading.

When Brighton won at Goodison Park, it was deserted by the end. When Bournemouth did, the Evertonian public were packed in because, little earlier, they had been raucous when Everton were rampant. And then suddenly Everton were ragged and they were wracked with nerves.

Which may be how they spend their season. Given Everton’s summer has seen two takeovers fall through, with the club’s future mired in uncertainty and pessimism part of the psyche, any more time spent chained to the foot of the table could be particularly damaging. So, too, any repeat of the kind of selfdestructive streak they showed here.