Everton slipped to defeat in their Premier League opener with Fulham.

Despite enjoying more chances, Sean Dyche’s side failed to make them count aside from a Michael Keane strike controversially disallowed by Stuart Attwell.

The Blues were finally undone in the second half when Bobby Decordova-Reid slid home unchallenged from a counterattack by Marco Silva’s visitors.

Here were the key talking points from Goodison Park:

New season, but same old Blues

Farhad Moshiri’s words continue to haunt Everton at the start of this season.

‘Judge us at the end of the transfer window – not now’ was how the club’s majority shareholder assessed their recruitment strategy just last summer.

Fast-forward exactly 13 months and that remark was at the forefront of the Blues’ dismal Premier League opening-day reversal to Fulham on Saturday.

It took a near-miracle for Sean Dyche’s side to narrowly avoid relegation for a second consecutive season but lessons do not appear to have been learned.

Evertonians had hoped that their team’s latest close shave would have led to a shift in approach on all levels at Goodison Park during the summer months.

Instead, they were treated to a rerun of the previous campaign with another west London opponent running out as one-goal winners with relative ease.

Marco Silva may not have enjoyed as comfortable an afternoon at his former stomping ground as April’s 3-1 dismantling but this was still as good as it got.

The ex-Everton manager’s charges weathered an early storm from their hosts before the tables turned at half-time and continued Goodison’s cycle of doom.

Unless it is broken, and fast, the Grand Old Lady will soon be facing a third scrap for survival for what threatens to be her final full season in operation.

Misfiring Maupay still won’t cut it

Another of Moshiri’s missives has already gone down in Goodison’s modern folklore after he declared in January that ‘We need a striker – we’ll get one’.

That boast ultimately backfired on the British-Iranian billionaire as Everton failed to sign one during the previous window and almost paid the price.

They could be in a similar situation if more capable marksmen than Neal Maupay are not sourced before the September 1 deadline on this evidence.

With Dominic Calvert-Lewin still being carefully managed back to full fitness, the Frenchman was burdened with leading the line against the Cottagers.

At times, however, it felt as though Maupay would welcome being swallowed up by the Goodison turf as he fluffed numerous chances during the first half.

Several one-v-ones with Bernd Leno were there for the taking while James Garner offered an easy out if the 26-year-old did not fancy his chances.

Granted, Maupay was never supposed to serve as Calvert-Lewin’s stand-in but this outing should disabuse Dyche that he might plug the gap in the interim.

Nor will Lewis Dobbin or Arnaut Danjuma, who both showed glimpses in their respective cameos after Bobby Decordova-Reid had broken the deadlock.

Youssef Chermiti’s arrival on Friday, similarly, is not a magic bullet when the teenager is already being spoken in hushed tones by Dyche as a prospect.

The Everton manager and Kevin Thelwell have their work cut out in the final 18 days of the window to avoid a repeat of Maupay’s misfiring masterclass.

Are these signs for optimism?

Glaring though Everton’s failings were, they still offered signs of promise.

That Maupay was allowed to spurn his glut of first-half chances is reflective of the improved creative output that saw Dyche’s side starting on the front foot.

Maintaining that intensity also had roots in the Toffees manager’s pre-season work with his players looking noticeably sharp both in and out of possession.

Nowhere did that appear more evident than in Alex Iwobi, who is showing signs of replicating his sparkling form at the end of the 2021/22 campaign.

The Nigeria international was a hive of activity down Fulham’s right flank; routinely bearing down on goal and occasionally fashioning his own chances.

Assuming the mantle from Abdoulaye Doucoure, who was as guilty as Maupay in spurning an easy opening, Iwobi embodied a lot of Dyche’s new hallmarks.

Possibly no club knows how one swallow does not necessarily constitute a summer quite like Everton but there were hints of a potential resurgence.