Click here to read the previous episode

I always enjoy the international break. It’s a chance to take stock, check in with the staff, work with the youngsters, and really just manage the culture of the football club. It also means that the dozen or so senior internationals who hate my face are scattered across the globe and can’t upset me.

However, international break has brought the usual selection of problems. Rick Karsdorp is knackered after doing his thing with the Dutch U21s, Seamus Coleman is still out and needs minutes in the reserves before he’s ready, so we’ll have to go with Mason Holgate at right-back which worries me.

Romelu Lukaku is, of course, still out for two months and Enner Valencia returned from Ecuador with profound jetlag, so he’ll have to sleep it off on the bench and we’ll only wake him if it’s an emergency. That means Oumar Niasse will lead the line against Manchester City, a phrase that will strike fear into the heart of absolutely no-one. We’re going to be up against it here. The only positive note is that they’ve still got Claudio Bravo in goal.

We’re good. We’re actually really good. City are miles better at football than us, but we’re a nasty bunch of blighters and they don’t seem at all prepared for us to snap into our tackles and prevent them from faffing around with it.

After ten minutes, Tom Davies starts a move that leads to the first big chance of the day. He hits Kevin De Bruyne like a runaway sledge wiping out a grandmother, the ball spins off to Niasse, who takes a touch and releases Ross Barkley. Our homegrown number 10, and despite Mr Kenyon’s decision to push a picture of Davy Klaassen under my door last night, still our only number 10, gallops forward. He slips it through to Gerard Deulofeu and his shot is only just over the bar.

Such is the intensity of our press, chances are few and far between. At least until the 43rd minute when De Bruyne gets his own back by lashing a shot into Davies’ windpipe and watching it veer off into the back of the net. It’s a little harsh and I tell the players as much at the break.

Sadly, there’s nothing left in the tank. We keep City at bay, but we don’t create chances and the game just ebbs away. Niasse is withdrawn towards the end, a sullen figure who has offered me nothing. But should I have expected anything else?

We’ve lost our first league game of the season. But we’re also now three games without a win and I don’t like that at all.

I know one thing for certain: we can’t risk playing Niasse up front again. This is the Premier League and he’s not cut out for it. I know it, Duncan knows it. I suspect even Niasse knows it.

We have to go to White Hart Lane next and though it was something of a surprise to see Mauricio Pochettino suffer a 0-4 defeat to his old employers Southampton last weekend, this is the still the team of Dele Alli, Son Heung-Min, and Harry Kane. Oh, and Felipe Anderson, who they picked up in August. So you can imagine my reaction when I was told I had an urgent message from the medical department…

So Lukaku, one of my few world class players, is out for two months, his sparky stand-in is out for three months, and I’m left with a random Uruguayan forward called Leandro Rodriguez who has thus far failed to impress in the U23s… and Niasse.

Sigh.

Barely 90 seconds have elapsed when we fail to clear our lines from a routine cross and Kane smashes the ball home from close range. We’re losing. Again. I can see the morale dripping out of the players. This is typical. So thoroughly typical. Only Everton can do this. Only Everton can offer a little glimmer of light, a little ray of hope, and then pull down the black out curtains and scream at you in the darkness. It’s just a relentless, grinding misery and I hate it. I absolutely hate it.

And then Niasse picks up a pass from Deulofeu and cracks one into the bottom corner from about 30 yards. I’ve never seen anything like it. White Hart Lane is silenced.

Sixty seconds later, White Hart Lane is incensed because Deulofeu has broken clear down the right, tossed in a cross and Niasse has just bundled it home with a combination of chest and pelvis. 2-1.

Then Davies buries his demons from last week by blasting the ball at Kyle Walker’s face. The vicious ricochet spins past Hugo Lloris and we’re 3-1 up. I have no idea what is going on. Even less so when Barkley trots forward and wellies a fourth into the top corner from distance. What sort of a thing is happening here? Perhaps even more astonishing than the half-time scoreline is the full-time scoreline. It ends 4-1.

And so to the final game of the month. A fresh banana skin tossed onto the polished tiles of destiny. It’s Hull, it’s at home, they have one point from five games, they’ve scored once and conceded ten. They are bereft of confidence and we are giddy with delight. The bookies have us 3-1 on to win. At any other club, I’d be checking the fitness levels of key players and maybe blooding some kids. But this is Everton, so my only change is to give left-footed James McLean a chance to nose in front of the impudent Yannick Bolasie and the eternally disappointing Kevin Mirallas.

It’s a Monday night fixture and if Romelu Lukaku is watching at home, I’d imagine that he’s feeling more than a little anxious. If he came back to training tomorrow, miraculously cured of his injury, I’d still have to leave him on the bench for West Ham next week because Niasse is now officially undroppable.

He breaks the deadlock after just six minutes, but he’s afforded no official credit for the act because his shot goes in off David Meyler and is marked up as on own goal. No matter. Ten minutes later when Barkley overhits a pass, Niasse somehow stretches ahead of Michael Dawson and jabs out a toe to stick it in the bottom corner. And then when Hull waste a corner of their own, it’s Niasse who holds the ball up just long enough to allow Deulofeu to roar up the pitch, cut inside and blast a third goal into the back of the net.

Sure, it’s a little disappointing when Ramiro Funes Mori gets himself sent off with five minutes to go, but I throw Ashely Williams on, safe in the knowledge that even his presence can’t cost me three more points. Niasse now has three Premier League goals in three starts.

And as September closes, Everton continue to linger in the upper reaches. Some caveats: we’ve beaten Hull (20th), Sunderland (17th) and Burnley (16th) as well as a Spurs (13th) side that have lost three already and really need to kickstart their campaign before the Levy breaks.

But still, that’s 13 points in six games. That’s not too shabby. That’s not too shabby at all. That’s enough of a cushion to buy me at least three weeks of restful sleep before a trip to Stoke is followed by a Merseyside derby and then Chelsea away.

Even Erwin has to respect that, right?

Click here to read the next episode