Everton boss Sean Dyche admits he has been surprised by his side’s poor start to the season even though he was well aware of the challenges they faced.

The Toffees prop up the Premier League table after losing all four of their matches so far, with Saturday’s 3-2 defeat at Aston Villa the second successive game where Everton have surrendered a 2-0 lead.

It is the first time since 1958 that Everton have lost their first four league games and they will be hoping for a change of fortune next week against winless Leicester, who also let slip a two-goal lead in Saturday’s draw at Crystal Palace.

Having spent the last few seasons battling at the wrong end of the table, Dyche did not expect Everton to coast through the start of the new season, but neither did he foresee their current plight.

“I wasn’t coming into this season thinking we are going to breeze through it, absolutely not,” he said.

“I’ve been in the game a long time. I know where the challenges are within that squad and the obvious ones are the numbers, people are not fully fit.

“We’ve lost players to injuries and these are the challenges that come your way so no way was I expecting it to be a walk in the park.

“But equally had a lot of belief in this side to not get off to the start we’ve had so that’s a surprise and something we have to correct obviously.

“But, I didn’t come into this season thinking everything was solved because we finished strong last season, absolutely not. There’s massive challenges ahead, we need to correct and that’s my job and my responsibility.”

Losing consecutive games from a two-goal advantage has led to questions over Everton’s mentality in winning positions.

Dyche brushed off that idea and pointed to players making costly mistakes.

He added: “It’s a growth for the players, some players are learning for the first time.

“There’s enough experience out there to understand, doing enough of the basics and the hard yards, basic principles. You can’t make mistakes, and we’re making too many. I need to speak about that with the players among many other things.”

Everton looked on course for their first points of the season at Villa Park after netting twice in the opening half-hour through Dwight McNeil and Dominic Calvert-Lewin but the home side hit back through Ollie Watkins’ brace before Jhon Duran struck a brilliant winner.

Former Everton man Amadou Onana was dispossessed for the Toffees’ opener and was substituted at the break following a below-par first half from the Belgian.

Unai Emery brought on Ross Barkley in his place which saw an almost instant improvement in Villa’s midfield in the second half.

Emery revealed he is still experimenting with his side in that area of the pitch, saying: “Barkley and (Youri) Tielemans are players who are similar who can play together.

“When we needed in the second half a little bit more possession, I decided to change tactically.

“Of course we had with Onana the same, I said last week, there is still a lot of work to do to try and get it right tactically, the players who joined last year – it is not easy to build.”