For the second week running Saints started badly, but this time they paid the price and even a good second half would not be enough to salvage a point.
Mark Hughes had announced that there were no injury concerns other than Elyounoussi ahead of the game, but Jannik Vestergaard failed to make the team due to illness and this would truly cost Saints.
From the very start Everton came out of the blocks and played with an intensity that Saints lacked, there was no leader on the pitch, we looked like rabbits in the headlights and it was not a surprise when Everton took the lead on 15 minutes with a well worked goal that left us stood watching as Theo Walcott slotted home.
On 30 minutes the lead was doubled and again it was a soft goal, at this point the whole side looked disjointed and uninterested and the back four didn't seem to know what they were doing.
The issue seemed to be our inability to mark, Jack Stephens was letting his man go and that was pulling Wesley Hoedt out of position and the gaps were everywhere, although Saints had had the odd chance, not least Ings effort from close range when he really should have scored after Pickford spilled the ball, you truly feared for Saints in the second half.
It is about each player knowing what their job is and where they should be at key moments, we don't seem to be able to do that and one player losing his position then creates a domino effect and drags others
But we pulled it together in the second half and after Danny Ings swept the ball home 10 minutes after the break Everton wobbled and you felt that Saints could get something from the game.
But they were playing 12 men, Lee Mason booked 5 Saints players when there had barely been a bad tackle in the game from either side, only Romeu really deserving it for taking out Richarlison who milked it rolling around and looking up three times to make sure the ref had seen it.
Mason who has previous form with both Saints and Mark Hughes seemed to referee Saints differently from the home side, that was never more emphasised than when Pickford when clearing the ball almost cut Danny Ings in half, yes the keeper played the ball but it was clearly dangerous play, you can't leap about like an extra in Enter The Dragon and the state of Ings shirt showed just how dangerous Pickford had been.
I'm not taking anything away from Everton here but Mason affected the game and that was not right, if he didn't consider the Pickford incident dangerous play then he clearly has no grasp of the laws of the game.
All in all though despite a spirited second half we couldn't quite haul it back and all we got out of itwas hope that we can beat Leicester next weekend, there were some encouraging signs and we showed that we can play attacking football and mark Hughes could not be accused of negativity.
However it is worrying that we can't seem to get the starting line up quite right and the lack of spirit and motivation in the early stages of the game, this needs to be addressed, we missed Jannik Vestergaard and his height would have helped us especially in the first half where we lost header after header in our own box.
But we rarely get the rub of the green at Goodison Park, we need to now dust ourselves down and go into the Leicester game with the confidence that once we get a win under our belts perhaps the confidence will return