Frank Lampard has just seen the 'brutal truth' at Everton

Consider this grim set of figures.

When Everton, briefly, climbed to fourth in the table after a well-earned draw at Old Trafford in early October, Newcastle United were second bottom and still winless.

Fast-forward four months and the 11 points, and chasm in the standings, which separated the two sides has almost evaporated.

It has all but vanished because just one place and one point now keeps these two teams apart.

Frank Lampard said he came into the Everton job with his 'eyes open' to the predicament but, in so many ways, he would rather not have seen this.

But for the sake of the season, it was better that he did. However hard it will have been to watch.

If Saturday, at a raucous and rejuvenated Goodison Park, was the near-perfect start to his reign as manager then this, at St James' Park in his first league game as boss, was nightmarish.

The win over Brentford was a triumphant anomaly. This was the brutal truth of what's been going on.

So much of what had been excellent and energetic against Brentford was forgotten here, left in the hold of the team's chartered flight from John Lennon Airport, as Everton fell to an all too familiar defeat - the type that has taken them from those heights in October, to only three points outside of the bottom three.

Everton are, as Lampard knows all too well, just a Norwich City win away from being in an even bigger mess than they are already.

Goal-difference remains on their side but it won't be for much longer, if they ship goals as softly as this.

How has it come to this, by the way, that we are left to grasp onto the fact that Everton would remain outside of the drop zone because of a superior goal difference?!

Such talk, back in October after the point against Manchester