It was hard not to be swept away by a wave of positivity when Sean Dyche took over at the City Ground.

There was nostalgia and stirring words from a former academy player finally getting to wear the Nottingham Forest badge and fond memories of learning his trade during the Brian Clough era.

With encouraging performances against Porto, Leeds United, Liverpool, Malmo and Tottenham Hotspur — and even in defeat against Manchester City last weekend — it was easy to get lulled into a false sense of security.

The chaos of the Ange Postecoglou era had been calmed. The new manager has turned things around. He has them moving in the right direction. This squad — bolstered by £200million worth of 13 new additions last summer — has too much quality to be sucked into another relegation fight.

All of those things will hopefully still prove to be true.

But there is no room for complacency. At the halfway stage of the campaign, Forest are still in a relegation fight.

This always felt like the biggest game of Dyche’s Forest tenure. Win and the world would feel like a better place, lose and it might feel like it was ending, purely because of what is on the horizon.

Ultimately, the latter was painfully true. For the second time this month, David Moyes came out on top in the tactical battle.

Forest dominated possession (70.1 per cent) — by half-time, they had delivered 25 crosses into the Everton penalty area, which was the most any team has mustered in the first half of any Premier League game this season (Liverpool had 23 at Burnley in September). They finished the game with 52 crosses — two shy of the biggest tally.

But, for all of that, it was too easy for Everton. Too often the high, looping balls in the middle were easily dealt with by the imposing central defensive duo of James Tarkowski and Jake O’Brien.

Both of Everton’s goals came on the break, with the outstanding former Forest player James Garner scoring the first and setting up the other, for Thierno Barry. But, much like Forest’s recent 3-0 defeat on Merseyside, this was a victory Everton entirely deserved.

On Saturday, Forest head to face Aston Villa, whose title hopes were dented by a painful defeat by Arsenal last night. But they have been one of the best sides in the top flight this season. Beyond that, Forest head to face a familiar face, in Nuno Espirito Santo, the man who started the campaign as manager at the City Ground, having led them to an improbable seventh-placed finish in May. His departure, in September, feels like a lifetime ago.

Dyche has warned the job is not done to keep Forest out of relegation trouble  (Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images)

Victory against a hugely depleted Everton would have put a seven-point gap between Forest and Nuno’s West Ham United, who occupy the final spot in the relegation zone. Now the buffer between the two teams is four points. If West Ham beat Wolves, the team stranded at the foot of the table, on Saturday — and Forest do not get anything at Villa Park — there is a chance they could head to London under the threat of dropping into the bottom three.