Sean Dyche said Everton’s players failed to follow his gameplan as they slumped to a disappointing defeat to Nottingham Forest. The Blues rarely troubled the visitors in their 2-0 loss, taking until the 80th minute to muster their first effort on goal.

Forest, meanwhile, offered a constant threat and Anthony Elanga had two golden opportunities to add to the strikes of Chris Wood and Morgan Gibbs-White.

After the match, Dyche accepted his side had been second best. He said: "I thought they did what they have done to a lot of teams this season.

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"They played counter attack football and played it very well - that is not a sleight on them - they stayed organised and played forward quickly.

"They asked questions and scored one good goal - poor from us - but the second goal is farcical from us. You can’t give away goals, particularly not against a side in that kind of form and renowned this season for being very organised and hard to break down."

Dyche believed his side could have had a penalty in the first half for a challenge on Jarrad Branthwaite but could not hide his frustration at the display.

Asked whether he was disappointed by the ease with which Forest enacted their gameplan, he said: “I was disappointed, simply, because in the first half our players did the opposite of what we told them, which is very frustrating as a manager, trust me.

"I have told them that because we analysed it, we looked at the things we wanted to do, and didn’t offer anything that we expected us to deliver and could have done without a poor goal from us defensively, which is unusual lately, and they did the basics better than us in the first half.

"In the second half we asked a few more questions, we didn’t really open them up, but by then were 2-0 down after a soft goal.”

Dyche said he had hoped to see his side play quickly and with tempo but added: “We didn’t, we went completely the opposite and played slowly, rolled at the back - pointlessly at times. And then it was too method-bound, there weren’t enough questions.”