Everton defeated Bournemouth 3-0 last weekend to earn their first home victory of the year and finally stop their Goodison Park winless streak.
Sean Dyche, the manager of the Blues, now has the chance to try and change the club’s history of failure and create some much-needed momentum this season.
One of the reasons why Everton were finally able to start performing better is the fact that almost all the current first-team squad players are fully fit, except for club captain Seamus Coleman.
The Toffees found a winning formula at the Grand Old Lady and critically Dyche had all his attacking talent available to choose from last Saturday.
In particular, both senior centre-forwards Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Beto were fit, along with wingers Dwight McNeil, Arnaut Danjuma and Jack Harrison.
In addition, young forwards Youssef Chermiti and Lewis Dobbin were also in the squad. All this gave Dyche the most scope to select the team he wanted.
This situation is a welcome change from the recent past when Dyche and several of his predecessors had to find a way to win so many games with key players missing.
The most significant individual absentee has been Calvert-Lewin, who was out injured from the opening weekend until almost the end of the last campaign, bar a few occasional appearances.
His absence probably contributed to costing Frank Lampard his job and possibly also Rafa Benitez before him too, as the former England international spent a large time out hurt when the Spaniard was in charge.
And, his late return to temporary fitness last season (for example at Brighton) was certainly a factor to enabling Dyche to keep the Blues up, albeit by the skin of their teeth.
So now, after putting together a side that clicked, performed and brought victory at home, Dyche has a week to plot and plan how he is going to try and win a derby at Anfield and become only the second Toffees boss in over twenty years to win at the old enemies turf.
While I think it is important he remains committed to a positive and energetic approach, the Everton manager will certainly need his players away on international duty to return unscathed.
Fortunately, there are only a few senior players who are away and likely to feature for their countries over the coming few days.
Even still, Dyche will be crossing his fingers that Jordan Pickford, Nathan Patterson, Vitalii Mykolenko, and Amadou Onana are all still in good health when they return to Merseyside (particularly given Coleman’s ongoing absence).
While all clubs are obviously keen not to have injured players return, any significant injuries to these players will put the Everton manager’s particularly paper thin squad depth under severe strain over the coming weeks of the season.
