Dyche upset by defensive blunders in damaging defeat

Sean Dyche criticised Burnley’s poor defending after they went down 5-1 to Everton, their sixth defeat in seven Premier League games.

Everton scored three times in the opening 22 minutes at Turf Moor and added two more after half-time in a miserable Boxing Day for the troubled hosts, who are now three points adrift of safety.

The Clarets only had themselves to blame for the damaging early deficit as Yerry Mina rose unchallenged to head in the opener and Ben Mee’s handball gifted away a penalty either side of Lucas Digne’s 13th-minute free-kick.

Ben Gibson provided fleeting hope of a fightback with a goal before the break and belief might have grown had James Tarkowski converted a simple chance soon after the interval, but Dyche was left upset with his team’s charitable attitude at the back.

“A very difficult afternoon. Mainly difficult for the first half an hour or so of the game, certainly the first 25 minutes,” Dyche told Sky Sports.

“They came out with a real hard tempo and we didn’t deal with that. Sloppy goals, sloppy moments – all of a sudden you’re on the back foot.

“I was super disappointed with the first half an hour or so. Then, to be fair, the mentality changed and we did manage to get just a slight window of opportunity by half-time.

“From our point of view the big moment of the game is Tarky’s miss. If that goes in, [Everton have] just conceded six [against Tottenham], it might be a nervous time for them. But that didn’t go in and the rest is how it shows on the scoreline.”

FULL-TIME Burnley 1-5 Everton

Everton get back to winning ways in style, as Digne (2), Mina, Sigurdsson and Richarlison find the net#BUREVE pic.twitter.com/p3zaOB2EvY

— Premier League (@premierleague) December 26, 2018

Everton steadied after a slight wobble at the start of the second half, restoring their three-goal margin through left-back Digne before substitute Richarlison completed the scoring in stoppage time.

Marco Silva sought to restore belief following Sunday’s 6-2 hammering against Tottenham and was pleased with the response from his players.

“One of the biggest things when I spoke to the players and we did our analysis was that inside of them was the same guy of three weeks ago, and that I was proud of them,” he said.

“I said that I was the same coach, who still believed in them, and that we never give up as a team.

“Our last result was tough but we didn’t have any doubts about our qualities and our team. We had a bad afternoon [against Spurs] but we answered it well.”