Everton’s fine form continued on Saturday evening as they downed Burnley with a commanding 2-0 victory at Turf Moor.

The success was Everton’s fourth win from five matches since the decision from a Premier League Commission to impose a 10-point deduction on the Club. 

Earlier in the week, Sean Dyche was asked in his press conference held at Finch Farm previewing Saturday’s win whether he felt the verdict handed down has had a galvanising impact on the squad, with many external parties believing the decision is a key reason behind the Blues’ perceived uptick in form. 

Dyche, though, was keen to quickly repudiate that idea, stating: “The team was operating well before that. I said in the early season that while we didn’t get a win, some of the performances were excellent. We transferred that into winning performances and then came the news of the 10 points. 

“Then followed the Manchester United game, which I thought we played very well in and we’ve carried on winning matches since.”

Dyche’s assessment is fair, and those who have consistently watched the Toffees throughout the season so far would struggle to argue differently. 

Despite the slow start that Dyche alluded to in terms of victories, Everton have still already won 11 games across all competitions this season. That’s two more than the Blues managed across the entirety of the last campaign. Eight of those victories have come from their 17 Premier League matches - matching last season’s total from 38 rounds - and have contributed to a points return which would be 26 but for the deduction. 

Across the last 16 campaigns, Everton have accumulated more than 26 points after 17 rounds on just three occasions. The most recent of those came in the 2020/21 season under former boss Carlo Ancelotti. 

That was also the last time in which the Toffees secured a spot inside the top half, finishing 10th despite having been heavily involved in the battle to secure European football for much of the year - the Blues sat as high as second in the table on Boxing Day. 

In that 2020/21 campaign, Everton had 32 points on the board after 17 rounds which is six more than they would have now but for the deduction. But a delve into the underlying numbers illustrates that from a performance perspective, there’s a reasonable case to be made that the Toffees this season are operating at a higher level than they were for much of the opening half of that term. 

One way to capture this point is by looking at shots generated and faced, a basic but also key insight into team performance. After 17 Premier League rounds of the 2020/21 season, Everton had faced 205 shots, which is five fewer than they’ve allowed so far this season. 

However in attack, the Blues have so far generated 242 efforts on their opponents’ goal. Only four sides across the Premier League can better that return, and it’s also 64 more efforts than the 178 managed by Everton at the same stage of that 2020/21 season. 

Key underlying metrics also paint Dyche’s Everton side in a very favourable light. His Toffees have so far accumulated an Expected Goal (xG) total of 30.21 according to Understat. That’s a sizeable increase on the 23.77 they generated following 17 games of the 2020/21 season.

And in terms of Expected Points (xP) - the number of points a team is expected to have won in correlation with their xG for and against - the Blues’ total of 27.98 is again a significant increase on the 22.88 at this stage of 2020/21. 

Another impressive facet of Everton’s displays this season is the commanding nature of the scorelines. Compared to many other sports, football is low-scoring, with one goal usually decisive in some way to a result. Therefore, given the unpredictable nature of the game, multiple-goal leads can often prove crucial to ensuring victories. 

Five of Everton’s eight league wins this season have been by a margin of two goals or more. Again if we use the 2020/21 season for comparison, just three of Everton’s 10 wins from their opening 17 rounds were by a multi-goal margin. 

Games too often being finely poised is perhaps one of the reasons the Toffees’ form tailed off in the latter stages of that campaign. Even so, that season was still Everton’s most competitive in recent times and it was the only one from the past four which delivered a top-half finish.

While the 10-point deduction - currently under appeal - might eventually deny the Blues a position in the table worthy of their performances this season, the positive strides being made under Dyche are evident.