Frank Lampard’s Everton reign began with a 4-1 rout over Brentford.

Substitute Yerry Mina broke the deadlock against Brentford shortly after the half-hour mark when he rose to meet Demarai Gray’s corner from the left.

Richarlison doubled the hosts’ lead within minutes of the second half from a perfectly weighted pass by compatriot Allan to rifle the ball home cleanly.

But the Blues’ two-goal cushion lasted barely five minutes as Ivan Toney won a penalty after drawing out Jordan Pickford before converting from 12 yards.

That advantage was restored midway through the second half as Mason Holgate powered home from another corner into the Gwladys Street’s net.

In stoppage time, Andros Townsend gift-wrapped a place in the FA Cup’s fifth round with a sweeping finish to give Lampard a record-setting maiden outing.

Here were the key talking points from Goodison Park:

Lampard starts on the front foot

Frank Lampard did not consult with his predecessors as Everton manager for the sole reason of avoiding any preconceived ideas of the task ahead of him.

But it is probably just as well, given his new charges produced more in just one 90-minute encounter than in 22 matches under the man he replaced.

Lampard’s front-footed approach against Brentford shattered any illusions that the Blues are a team devoid of hope, creativity and any semblance of fight.

Four goals – half of them scored from set pieces – and comfortably dominating proceedings transformed Goodison from its previous levels of despondency.

Setting up in a 3-4-3 formation released the shackles as Everton excelled at the outset instead of scrambling around for solutions from the 60th minute.

First impressions can be misleading, and there will be much sterner tests than this, but Lampard has laid down a marker for what his team should represent.

If they can maintain this level of intensity consistently over the remaining half-season, Evertonians might be dare believe in a brighter future ahead.

Blues’ fortitude belatedly returns

A common theme of Everton’s tumultuous campaign so far has been a total inability to withstand pressure when their opponents are in the ascendancy.

No matter how comfortable the score line is in a game, they still conspire to crumble at the slightest sign of momentum beginning to ebb away from them.

Or, at least, they did.

Ivan Toney’s penalty-box dash which allowed the visitors to keep their hand in this fourth round tie had all the ingredients for another potential collapse.

Yet in the little time that Lampard spent working with Everton’s players on the training pitch this week, they appear to have relocated some mental fortitude.

Within eight minutes of their lead being halved, Mason Holgate had restored it at a corner derived from Anthony Gordon creating a chance for Andre Gomes.

At no point in the aftermath of Toney’s spot kick conversion did they resemble a team which was teetering on the brink of another humiliating capitulation.

That in itself is proof the new Everton boss has already made giant strides.

…but Murphy’s Law persists

Something Lampard will need to accept during his formative months in the Goodison hot seat is the propensity for Murphy’s Law to rear its ugly head.

He received an early taste of the decree that everything which could possibly go wrong invariably does when Ben Godfrey pulled up in the first 15 minutes.

The England under-21 international limped off with what appeared to be a serious hamstring injury and later traipsed across the turf using crutches.

Goodison’s treatment room list seems to grow longer with each passing week and Godfrey looks almost certain to become its latest confirmed casualty.

Losing him for potentially several weeks not only strikes a blow to Lampard’s vision of making a three-man defence something of a regular occurrence.

It also strips Everton of a player whose quality has ranked him among their finest performers across the past 12 months at a highly critical juncture.

Finding solutions was already part of Lampard’s workload but improvising with limited options threatens to become a necessary evil if Murphy’s Law persists.