Everton boss Sean Dyche was encouraged by his defence in defeat to Arsenal on Sunday.

Vitalii Mykolenko made his first start of the season at fullback, with Jarrad Branthwaite and James Tarkowski also leaving Dyche pleased at centre-half.

"[Mykolenko] gives us balance, of course," Dyche told evertontv. "He had two solid performances [for Ukraine] while he was away. I've been waiting for him to get fit.

"I thought he played well and there were some good signs within that defensive performance.

"The element of fluidity in the side today and that's been pretty good - the way we've used the ball, the effectiveness of the way we've used the ball and everyone wanting the ball - but that went missing [against Arsenal].

"On the transition, not enough people wanted to go and play, wanted to be active with the ball and have that different kind of bravery with the ball."

Dyche added: "I thought [the partnership between Branthwaite and Tarkowski] was good against some very good players. I thought we were very effective in that area of the pitch, it was more the transition area [that wasn't there] - dealing with the ball from our point of view.

"It's difficult against top teams because they don't just play well, they press well and they anticipate. We didn't anticipate with the ball and we weren't effective in counter-attacking situations. It's important to learn from and important to keep moving forward."