Marco Silva delivered a rebuttal to his predecessor which, had they heard it, might have been received by the Goodison crowd as enthusiastically as their team’s goals against Lincoln City.

Sam Allardyce used Everton’s recent defeat by Leicester as an opportunity to tell Silva where he has been going wrong since replacing him last summer. Having kept his counsel when Silva enjoyed an encouraging start to the season, the timing was suspiciously cynical.

“You can talk about playing it out from the back and attractive football, but you will never survive as Ronald Koeman and Roberto Martinez learnt,” said Allardyce. “They all played so-called better football than me, but they didn’t survive.”

Silva queried Allardyce’s motivation when informed of the digs at his style. “My style? How I dress? My hair? Ah, my style of football,” said the Everton manager. “I am not here to make comments about him. You have to look at whether these people love Everton, if they want Everton really winning, if they want some stability inside the club?

“If there are real Everton fans talking like that, then maybe we have to be aware and to look at it, but if some people don’t want good results, just instability within our club, they are not worth listening to. If it is David Moyes, maybe I would listen because he did something really important at this club.