Everton have been given ‘get out of jail free card’ this season claims ex-Tottenham and Aston Villa man

Former Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa boss Tim Sherwood believes Everton have a 'get out of jail free' card this season due to the lack of quality from other teams in the Premier League.

All three sides promoted from the Championship last term - Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton Town - have picked up just one point each and sit in the bottom three. Everton have narrowly avoided relegation in the last two seasons and had claimed just one point from their opening five games.

However, the Toffees gave themselves a much-needed boost with an impressive 3-1 win at Brentford last weekend in a result moved them up to 15th.

Sherwood believes the Toffees, along with the likes of Nottingham Forest, will stay in the Premier League this season given the early struggles of the three promoted sides.

"If you are an Everton this year, it is a get out of jail free card," said Sherwood on Gillette Soccer Special on Tuesday evening.

"I believe Nottingham Forest are capable of staying up, I don't think anybody questions whether they can stay up. With the teams struggling down there at the moment, you can change the manager all you want, it is the players and the amount of quality.

"They are all struggling to score goals and if you aren't scoring goals you aren't obviously going to win football matches."

Reflecting on his side's win at Brentford, which came via goals from Abdoulaye Doucoure, James Tarkowski and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Everton boss Sean Dyche said on Saturday: “I don’t think it came from anywhere. The signs have been there but you have to change the storyline, you have to take your chances.

“To come in at 1-1 was a bit of a head-scratcher, so to come out in the second half and be so calm again was very pleasing.

“I’m very pleased with the whole performance. My job is to look at the performances, win or lose. We’ve deserved more but you’ve got to force it and today we did.

“We had a good chat in the week with the players and said it’s us who have to change the story. It’s tough playing well and not getting results. That’s where you should grow and have on-pitch maturity and play under pressure and that’s what we did today.”