Everton are on a roll following their straightforward – and actually quite boring – dismissal of Burnley in midweek. 

Roberto de Zerbi’s heat-map heart-throbs will undoubtedly prove a tougher proposition on Saturday though. 

They can be a cracking team to watch, in fairness, but the whole idea that they are doing something revolutionary and, yawn, Moneyball, just wears a bit thin sometimes. Especially when their relative success is used as a stick to beat just about any and every ‘bigger’ club who ever suffers a poor spell. 

Turning up inexpensive gems, selling them on for massive profits, improving players and getting into Europe ahead of teams with bigger budgets? David Moyes did that for years at Everton. 

I’m not actually sure what my point is here, to be honest. There is a lot to like about Brighton – not least the way they keep having Chelsea off for daft money. 

They are hardly unbeatable though, as the Toffees showed in one of the most remarkable games in recent Everton history, at the Amex during last season’s run in. You may recall it.

This game on Saturday then is intriguing, because, let’s not forget – even though you’ve tried – the corresponding game at Goodison last season was an absolute horror show for the Blues.

Going back to managers and styles, and the mythology surrounding them, it was interesting seeing Burnley in the flesh the other night. They were regarded as one of the most exciting and accomplished teams to emerge from the Championship for some time when they absolutely waltzed to promotion, playing great football and being dubbed a ‘miniature Manchester City’.

Indeed, the spooky-baby-in-a-bottle-looking Vincent Kompany was, and perhaps still is, regarded as the natural successor to Pep Guardiola at the Bucket Hat Stadium. 

Their dire performances in the Premier League have come as something as a surprise then, with the most common observation being that their insistence on playing out from the back against the packs of slathering hyenas that are modern Premier League forward lines means that they are getting Gegenpressed right up the hoo-ha on a weekly basis. Which in turn means ‘big Vinny’ now faces what is commonly known in the game as the ‘Brown Shoe Dilemma’. 

Does he abandon all the principles that got Burnley into the division in the first place then, play more safety-first, get the ball forward quicker and try to avoid the self-inflicted wounds that way? Or do they double down and do what he believes is right, but insist that they just work harder at doing it better?

You wonder in that situation whether someone like Kompany starts to think: ‘with these players we are fucked if we do, fucked if we don’t’? He kind of hinted at that when he talked about the investment in Everton’s squad the other night. We would normally scoff at such a suggestion but when, for instance, you saw the £30 million Beto come on as substitute and absolutely rag-doll their defender – who looked like one of those overwhelmed security guards at a Black Friday riot in Michigan – you could see his point. 

And then does the rising star manager start to think that he needs to concentrate on damage limitation to his own ‘brand’ – make sure that future employers are made aware that he’s still all about the philosophy, but you know, you can’t make 99s with fucking Crunchies?

The Lampard Gambit, if you will.

Elsewhere, in the realms of absolute guesswork that keeps the Goodison News clickbait presses rolling, there’s now talk of the Toffees facing a mixture of a points deduction and a transfer ban if found guilty of breaching Financial Fair Play rules. 

Andre Gomes’ agent must be struggling to keep a straight face at the prospect of this. 

‘It’s a three year deal or Andre walks away. Slowly. Take or leave it, Kevin.’