Sean Dyche singles out one Everton player who’s been ‘terrific’ after Aston Villa victory

Sean Dyche singled out James Garner after he produced a man-of-the-match performance during Everton’s 2-1 win over Aston Villa.

The Toffees progressed to the fourth round of the EFL Cup after another strong away victory thanks to goals from Garner and Dominic Calvert-Lewin and will now face Burnley in the next round.

Two away victories will breed tremendous confidence for Everton after a previous record of four defeats in five leage games and they now head into the weekend’s game against Luton with hope of a third successive win.

Starring for Everton were the likes of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Jack Harrison, Amadou Onana and, most notably, James Garner, who the fans voted man of the match after another star performance.

With another all-round team performance, Dyche singled out Garner and praised his ability to a number of positions, this time in a more natural central midfield role.

“I think he’s been terrific, he’s had adaptability; I’ve said many times that these are learning all the time but he can play in a number of different positions and massive credit to him. I thought he was very good again tonight.”

Across his 90 minute performance, Garner managed 81% of his 27 passes, one key pass, completed three of his four dribbles, made six tackles and won a mammoth 11 duels out of 13 - as well as topping it off with a brilliant finish.

Dyche also went onto praise the team aspect as a whole, again citing their ability to adapt to different tactics as a back three of Michael Keane, James Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite were used as opposed to his more reliable back four method.

“I’m really pleased with the players and the flexibility. I spoke to them beforehand about having the flexibility to take on a different shape, some different thinking and different tactics but then, equally, I said to them that tactics don’t win games - performances do.”

Next up is that Premier League clash with Luton and Everton head into that game as confident as they’ve ever been under Dyche across his tenure so far after back-to-back wins over Brentford and Aston Villa.