After threatening to ruin the whole season, Everton may have finally fixed a problem.

After going on the road and losing four times, Everton got a good win at Ipswich Town. The goals were great, the Blues had chances to score more, and the away section was great as always.

The most pleasing thing, though, was that they found their toughness again, which was so important last year but had been missing so far this season.

It didn’t look like that would happen. Even though Everton was the better team throughout the whole game, they again had a hard time controlling it for big parts of it. It was fair that Everton had a two-goal lead at halftime, but that was because they were the better team during a very rough first half.

Those problems continued in the beginning of the second half, and it made people nervous that 2-0 could be a dangerous score for Everton, just like it was against Bournemouth and Aston Villa.

He agreed with me when I talked to him after the game. There was a view that one goal could quickly change the outcome of the game. This was based more on his track record of Ipswich’s comebacks than on Everton’s recent losses.

“If you get the next goal, you’ve got a good chance,” he told the Echo. “Especially at home and with our track record in those situations.” And we may have had some chances in the last 15 minutes. We know we’re in for a big end if one goes in.

In the end, Ipswich did put more pressure on the game. But they didn’t really create many chances, and when they did, it was because Everton was willing to give it up and let them choose where on the field it happened.

In the last 30 minutes, the defensive unit seemed to regain the trust that helped them keep so many clean sheets last year. Vitalii Mykolenko stopped the skilled Omari Hutchinson, Ashley Young was strong, and James Tarkowski and Michael Keane cleared out every ball that came into the box. Because of this, Jordan Pickford wasn’t tried very often.

After the game, Dyche said, “There has been a lot of talk about two-goal leads. I thought we played very well defensively to make sure we kept that lead.”

What he said was true. At the end of the game, Everton played with more power and maturity than they had when they lost at Goodison Park and Villa Park. Everton couldn’t hold on after scoring first, not even against Leicester City in the league or Southampton in the Carabao Cup.

Asked if the improvement seen on Saturday was due to work done at Finch Farm, Dyche replied, “Not so much work on the training pitch but reminders of games when we have seen them through.” With our skill, hard work, and perfect teamwork, we saw those games through. Those things were all on display today to make sure we watched the whole game.

At Portman Road, it seemed like this was the perfect Dyche show. He has always been good at winning the most important games, and this was one of those, too. It was a lot like Everton’s last away win, which happened in December. That game was also a 2-0 win against a newly promoted team that was under a lot of pressure to catch Everton. In that win at Burnley, Keane additionally scored.

“I spoke to the players afterward and said, ‘Look, with all due respect, this club has done an amazing thing getting to where it has got to, but they have not got our level of experience.'” Dyche showed that he knew how important experience was in his dugout and between the players on Saturday. I believe we proved that.

“We controlled the game in different ways, like playing defense with the ball while still looking good, making chances, and finding the right balance.” That work needs to keep going. The way we played overall made me think we proved ourselves.

Now, the key is to show the same level of resolve again and make sure it’s not just one time. If Everton want to show real progress this season, they will need to be able to compete with teams like Fulham and West Ham United, who are also waiting. A similar strategy could work at Southampton in two weeks, where they are losing.