Everton suffered a 4-1 humiliation at home to Brighton & Hove Albion.
Kaoru Mitoma handed the visitors the lead when Nathan Patterson misjudged Moises Caicedo’s cross-field ball, allowing the winger to score comfortably.
Frank Lampard’s side went further behind just minutes into the second half as Evan Ferguson turned Jeremy Sarmiento’s cutback past Jordan Pickford.
The Blues’ misery was further compounded as Solly March was given the freedom to run onto Ferguson’s pass and unleashed a powerful drive.
A fourth Brighton goal followed before the hour mark as Pascal Gross seized upon Idrissa Gueye’s poor back-pass before chipping the ball over Pickford.
Demarai Gray scored a late consolation from the penalty spot after Brighton goalkeeper Robert Sanchez had bundled over Alex Iwobi in stoppage time.
Here were the key talking points from Goodison Park:
Lampard finally runs out of road
Hard-fought though the draw against Manchester City was, Frank Lampard could not hide behind that alone to save his ailing tenure as Everton manager.
A hat-trick of home defeats alone would have placed the former midfielder’s body of work in the Goodison Park hot seat under the microscope again.
Yet there cannot be any possible way back for Lampard from this.
Indeed, if he is still in a job by close of play on Wednesday evening it will be nothing short of a minor miracle after such a comprehensive humiliation.
He finally ran out of road against a Brighton team who were able to swagger their way around the pitch and toward Jordan Pickford’s goal with regularity.
Persisting with the five-man defence that served him so well at the Etihad Stadium may seem like heresy at home, but why fix what isn’t broken?
That alone is symptomatic of Lampard’s 12 months at the helm. He has never stuck with a winning formula for more than two games at a time, if that.
Everton will soon be looking for their seventh permanent manager in as many years, proof that the more things change the more they stay the same.
‘Sack the Board…’ – what board?
As Brighton piled on the misery, the Goodison crowd belatedly found its voice.
Widespread chants of ‘Sack the Board’ greeted the visitors’ third and fourth goals in the space of just six minutes as well as following the final whistle.
They would have fallen on deaf ears, however, with many of their intended targets either disappearing from view or even not present in the first place.
Speculation of a rare public outing by Farhad Moshiri proved unfounded as Everton’s majority shareholder remained far out of sight but not mind.
He was not alone in shunning the directors’ box, with chairman Bill Kenwright appearing to elect for a similar approach as a miserable second half wore on.
Such was the growing absence of senior figures from the Goodison hierarchy that TV cameras were reduced to panning in on Denise Barrett-Baxendale.
Not even Everton’s often upbeat CEO could put a brave face on a game where the club appeared increasingly rudderless off the pitch as much as on it.
Blues still paying for muddled thinking
The comfortable score line told its own story, but the identity of Brighton’s goal scorers was a reminder of Everton’s misguided transfer outlook.
All four players who found the net had joined the Seagulls for a modest cumulative cost of just £5.6 million, testament to an astute recruitment policy.
They also know how to sell dispensable assets as a premium, as their hosts know all too well having forked out £15 million for substitute Neal Maupay.
Everton, meanwhile, fielded a starting XI which was an homage to muddled thinking with no fewer than four different managers’ signings involved.
Moshiri feared, back in 2017, that the club would become ‘a museum’; a relic frozen in time whie the rest of the Premier League continues to trend upward.
Being left behind was a concern for the British-Iranian billionaire and the Blues’ failure to prepare for the January window follows that worrying theme.
Ellis Simms’ recall from his season-long loan at Sunderland was indicative of that, with the young striker limited to little more than a seven-minute cameo.
Barring a remarkable turnaround, Everton again appear to have headed into the market underprepared and leaving them at the mercy of clubs casting off.