Everton remain in serious trouble after Marco Silva's Fulham left Goodison Park with all three points on a miserable Saturday afternoon.
The Cottagers' 3-1 reversal leaves Sean Dyche's struggling side out of the relegation zone on goal difference only, but with 18th-placed Nottingham Forest still yet to play this weekend.
With only three home games left, the Blues may now need to pick a result up on the road if they are to avoid dropping out of the top flight of English football for the first time in 72 years.
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Here's a round-up of what the national media made of the Toffees' woes against Fulham, plus the ECHO's own verdict.
Sam Drury - BBC Sport
Everton's home form was the key to their Premier League survival last season and is likely to be again.
Goodison Park might not be a fortress but three wins and a draw in five games under Sean Dyche suggested it was becoming a tough place to visit again.
For a combined 20 minutes either side half-time, it was clear to see why as Everton hurried and hassled, won the ball in Fulham's half and - roared on by the crowd - drove forward.
That was in stark contrast to the rest of the game as a Fulham side safe from relegation and some way back from the race for European football, were given the time and space to rebuild their confidence after a run of five straight defeats.
Everton seemed to use up all their fighting spirit and resilience in coming back from 1-0 down so when they went behind again they simply wilted in the Merseyside sunshine.
The Blues have seven games left - just three at home - to secure their top-flight status for another season and it will take far greater resolve than they showed against Fulham to do so.
Chris Bascombe - Telegraph
The revenge Marco Silva inflicted upon Everton could not have tasted any sweeter had it been served up by the Merseyside club’s famous Toffee Lady. With one exception.
The Fulham coach must lament being denied the post-match chance to look into the eyes of Everton’s majority shareholder, Farhad Moshiri, and the directors who sacked him, all of them still in Goodison exile.
Silva spent the final weeks of his Everton tenure in 2019 pleading for an acknowledgement the club’s problems were much bigger than him. His team could not have made that argument more compelling, Fulham giving a swashbuckling second-half performance that screamed to the absentee owner on Silva’s behalf, “It was never me, it was always you”.
In fairness, the Portuguese coach was in no mood to be salty. “I don’t need one football match to prove anything,” Silva said. “One game will not change the quality of what I am doing. I want to win the next game and the next game.”
The contrasting trajectories of Silva, Fulham and Everton speak for themselves. Silva has moved on. Everton have not, Sean Dyche having to urgently repair years of regression in a matter of weeks.
Given he could not buy a win when his Everton reign was brought to an undignified end, Silva must have been struck by the familiar despair inside Goodison as he plunged his former club into deeper trouble. Throw in a crucial goal by an ex-Liverpool player, Harry Wilson, and it amounted to another potent mix of home ire.
Despite a few scattering of jeers when referee Anthony Taylor called time on Fulham’s 3-1 win, there was a notable lack of toxicity. For the first time in their successive relegation scraps, even the Everton fans sounded defeated.
Andy Hunter - The Guardian
Everton had stirred under Sean Dyche, raising their hopes of a second successive escape from relegation but Goodison Park was shaken by the grim realisation that the Championship may be beckoning after all. Fulham cruised back to winning ways as Marco Silva’s side left his former club hovering precariously above the drop zone with three home matches to play.
The sight of Everton fans streaming for the exits after Dan James scored Fulham’s third was apt for a team that was resigned to its fate. Ensuring that resignation lasts for only one abysmal performance is the ominous challenge that now confronts Dyche. “A step backwards,” said the Everton manager. “The mentality has shifted since we came in but today it reverted back. We were lackadaisical after going behind to their second goal and that can’t happen.”
Without the suspended Aleksandar Mitrovic and Silva watching from the directors’ box, Fulham ended a run of five successive defeats in comprehensive style. Harrison Reed, Harry Wilson and James made light of the Serb centre-forward’s absence to score with ease against a frequently exposed Jordan Pickford. Everton, manager and players alike, were clueless as to how to stem the flow of white shirts slicing them to pieces in the second half. With Newcastle and Manchester City among the final three visitors to Goodison this was a must-win fixture for Dyche. They blew up spectacularly.
Adam Patel - Mail on Sunday
Before kick-off at Goodison Park, Everton welcomed 84-year-old Derek Temple and 85-year-old Tony Kay onto the pitch - two men from when they won the title in 1963.
For context, it was 12 years before that when Everton were last relegated from the top-flight in 1951 and after this defeat, the ominous prospect of Everton going down for the first time in 72 years looks increasingly like a genuine possibility.
This was a game Everton simply needed to win.
Instead, it was a joyous afternoon for Marco Silva, still serving a touchline ban, on his return to the club where he was sacked in 2019, as Fulham ended their five-game losing streak thanks to goals from Harrison Reed, Harry Wilson and Daniel James.
It left the home side outside the relegation places on goal difference alone, with Leicester and Nottingham Forest below them both still to play.
'Going down' sang the travelling Fulham fans in jest as the home supporters streamed out of Goodison and into the pubs outside as their attention turned to Aintree, three miles up the road for the 175th Grand National, perhaps for some light respite.
Everton's next two games here will see the visits of Newcastle and Man City, before they face Bournemouth on the final day.
The odds are no doubt against them.
ECHO's own view on Everton - Joe Thomas
Everton will no longer be able to rely on Goodison Park to protect the club’s Premier League status.
That is the grim reality after a lacklustre display in an important game lost to a Fulham side that had imploded since its chaotic FA Cup defeat to Manchester United a month ago. Yet despite facing opposition with little to play for, with its main goal threat suspended and its manager in the stands, Everton were second best.
All is not lost. But with just 27 points on the board and seven games to go, only three of which are at home, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see a survival run that does not feature wins on the road.
That has to be of real concern for a side that has won just three of its past 34 away league matches across this season and last. It can be done - few could forget the scenes at Leicester City after Everton secured a win that kept the club's fate in its own hands as the last campaign entered its final stages. And Sean Dyche has instilled a belief in his players that anything is possible, one that was key to recent away draws at Nottingham Forest and Chelsea. But pressure will stalk Everton across the country, to Selhurst Park, to the Amex, to Molineux and again to the King Power Stadium.
This is the case after a game that was perilously close to being a 'must win' turned into a nightmare.
