Sean Dyche reveals Jack Harrison injury concern and names Everton duo who were ‘really good’

Sean Dyche admitted that Jack Harrison battled through an injury to help inspire Everton’s maiden home win of the season.

The Toffees finally earned a victory at Goodison Park at the fifth time of asking as they breezed to a 3-0 triumph over AFC Bournemouth.

Harrison was handed a full Premier League debut for Everton after spending the first few weeks on the sidelines with a hip injury following his loan arrival from Leeds United. And after James Garner opened the scoring in the eighth minute, Harrison was on target for his first Blues goal seven minutes before half-time.

Bournemouth keeper Neto punched a cross clear, with the ball dropping for Harrison around 22 yards out. The winger needed no invitation to shoot and his controlled half-volley lobbed Neto and found the back of the net via the underside of the crossbar. Abdoulaye Doucoure then wrapped up the three points on the hour mark as he crashed home after Harrison had a header blocked.

Harrison had been carrying a minor hamstring issue ahead of the encounter. Meanwhile, Amadou Onana had been named on the bench before he was called into the starting line-up late on in the place of the injured Idrissa Gana Gueye. And Dyche was impressed by the pair, as well as Garner’s display.

The Everton manager said: “Him [Onana] and Jimmy were very good. Jimmy has been playing well anyway. They’re both young players, they’re both learning, they both want to learn, are pushing to learn. I thought Jack Harrison was very good. He was carrying a bit of a niggly hamstring almost out of worry about whether it was right to play or right not to. He said no, I want to play. I thought he was very good, I thought the two centre-halves were very good, Dom will get fitter and sharper as he showed in patches today, Doucs lively - so many good performances.”

Dyche has felt that Everton have been performing well this season without picking up the results they deserve in home losses to Fulham, Wolves and Luton particularly. The Goodison supremo again pointed to the expected goal metric as to how his side have not yielded victories in games they should have.

Dyche added: “I’m really pleased for the group because when we win, the noise changes. They were very good against Luton, in my opinion. I have to see through some of the noise, I have to speak about it all of the time because it’s important and reminding the players about the performances - but also reminding them it means nothing if they don’t win.

“You can carry on performing well all season but if you don’t win, people lose faith over the good performances. It was another good performance by getting the win, another dominant performance. It is fair to speak about xG when you have 25 efforts today and 23 in the last game with an xG of three [goals] plus. The xG is the highest it has been here in eight years, I think, but you have got to capitalise on it. You can’t keep waiting for it to happen and today we didn’t wait for it to happen, we made it happen. That’s a mindset that has to continue and want to keep growing.”