Everton ended their Dean Court hoodoo on Tuesday night, winning their first ever Premier League match at the home of the Cherries. It was another disappointing performance from Andoni Iraola’s side, who are now without a win in five matches. Here are five things I felt we learned from a worrying evening:

1. All is not well at AFC Bournemouth right now

What exactly is wrong with AFCB? I wish I could answer that question, but I definitely do not know the answer. I try to keep things as positive as I can, but it’s very evident that something is not right at the moment. Marcus Tavernier came on in the 60th minute, taking the armband, but just minutes later was throwing obscene gestures and language towards the North Stand. Personally, it felt like most of the audible frustration from fans was at the lack of support for Tavernier, rather than anger at him himself. Whether it was directed at him or not, it was a poor reaction from Tavernier, especially as captain of the side. Fans pay the money – yes the atmosphere was poor yesterday, but they are entitled to be frustrated. Keep your head in the game. This was compounded soon after when Tavernier gave the ball away in Everton’s half, with the Toffees breaking and scoring through Jack Grealish, which ended up being the winning goal. Away from the Tavernier drama, players were arguing amongst themselves, notably Justin Kluivert getting angry at Djordje Petrovic’s distribution, and Antoine Semenyo getting frustrated in the dying moments for not receiving the ball. Frustration can show passion, but I would argue the frustration on show the last couple of games more shows that everything is not right at this time. The players need to be able to channel this frustration into their football – not to their teammates or the fans.

2. We played into Everton’s hands

I don’t think David Moyes could have been happier with the way AFCB played against his side. Slow, no intensity, no movement, no real desire by the look of things, and a lot of long balls forward to the man-mountains that were James Tarkowski and Jake O’Brien. They were only accurate with 15 (33%) of long balls attempted, but still insisted on lumping the ball up to Junior Kroupi. AFCB managed just five shots on goal across the whole game, with Jordan Pickford only having two saves to make. That, put simply, is not good enough. You got the feeling the Cherries could have played all night and they would never even have come close to scoring.

3. Players were dearly missed + options were limited

I will stand on the point that a fully fit AFCB team would never have played that style of game. Even if they had started slowly, options off the bench would have allowed them to change things up, but once Evanilson + Tavernier were introduced on the hour mark, there weren’t many inspiring options to turn to. Ryan Christie would have undoubtedly added some drive and intensity, but he is still out for weeks. His countryman Ben Gannon-Doak has shown a real ability to get at his man and make something happen, but again, is out for a long time yet. That injury really came at an unfortunate time for him. As for the suspended players, Lewis Cook at centre back could’ve been key to breaking down a well organised side, but he only has himself to blame that he is still to miss two games to come. David Brooks and Marcos Senesi will be welcome additions back to the squad on Saturday – they really could’ve done with Brooks’ ability to create something from nothing and Senesi’s passing range from the back – but again, they only have themselves to blame. Julio Soler played 20+ minutes as a winger, showing just how limited Andoni Iraola’s options are right now. Tyler Adams picked up his 5th booking of the season on the night, meaning an out of form Alex Scott is the only senior midfielder available for Saturday’s game with Chelsea. It’s likely that Scott will drop deeper with Tavernier moving to the ‘8’, but it is concerning all the same.

4. You can’t win games when your right back is your best attacking threat

A rare bright spark from the game was Alex Jimenez, who came back into the side after sitting out against Sunderland. Jimenez dealt with Jack Grealish very well (you could say that he was out of position for their goal, but he had bombed forward and at that point was very tired) and looked our biggest threat going forward. He showed a willingness to drive and levels of intensity that most of his teammates sorely lacked. He was out on his feet by the end – personally I’m not sure why Adam Smith didn’t replace him as he could hardly move – so hopefully that is nothing more than cramp. But how can you ever win games of football when your most dangerous player is your right back? Justin Kluivert has looked a shell of his former self this season, and had another awfully quiet game last night. Antoine Semenyo has seen his levels fall off from the incredible highs of the beginning of the season – it’s not for me to speculate whether is head has completely turned following all the interest in him, but despite being captain last night, he didn’t show his usual drive and hunger. As previously mentioned, Kroupi could do very little against giant centre halves with no proper service, and whilst his replacement Evanilson did show some nice touches, there was very little for him to work with either. Goalscoring hasn’t been a problem recently, but there were real shades of the struggles against Newcastle earlier this season. Lewis Cook at centre back can’t be the only plan B against low blocks.

5. Need to re-discover the balance of the side

The defence did at least look stronger, with good performances from Jimenez, Veljko Milosavljevic, Bafode Diakite and Adrien Truffert. Everton rarely threatened. But that seemed to come at a cost of not looking like scoring ourselves. Whereas in recent weeks we have still looked strong going forward but open defensively, it was the opposite last night. The team put in some strong defensive displays whilst looking at their best during the brilliant start to the season, and they need to find those levels of performance from somewhere. Players are missing, but our best displays last season came when we had the least players available. Of course, the squad has changed somewhat since then, but somewhere in that side is the ability to turn up the most when everyone else has written you off. No one ever expected the results and levels of performance to last for the whole campaign, but recent signs are definitely worrying, especially with games against Chelsea (twice), Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs coming before the end of January. There is no doubt this team is good enough to compete with all those teams – but they need to find the balance in the side to be able to do that.

Frustrations are high within the club but all it takes is one positive result to get us out of the slump and climbing back up a very congested table. If anyone can sort them out, Andoni can.