London - There is a target for Everton this season and it is European football and on Monday night you were not quite sure which level of competition it would be.
Romelu Lukaku struck a stunning 11-minute hat-trick in the second half at the Stadium of Light that blew Sunderland away and pushed his team to joint second in the Premier League table.
It was the execution, the clinical power of Everton that was so striking.
Sunderland took Everton apart at the Stadium of Light in this fixture at the end of last season. It kept them up. There looked a future for Sunderland.
Since then both teams have changed managers and Everton have added power and Sunderland have still to grasp the significance of the summer. They have got weaker. Everton have got stronger. Lukaku took them apart but he was ably backed by the excellence of Gerard Deulofeu, Yannick Bolasie and Idrissa Gueye.
It was level at half-time and at that stage both sides had missed chances. Jermain Defoe had spurned a fine opportunity in the 10th minute, shooting over Maarten Stekelenburg's crossbar. Jordan Pickford had produced a fine save to deny Lukaku (he could have had five) with his head. Lynden Gooch had forced a smart save from Stekelenburg at the other end.
But then the game changed dramatically and much was to do with the arrival of Deulofeu and the removal of Ross Barkley. Barkley was poor in the corresponding fixture last season, a win which kept Sunderland in the Premier League.
He was similarly careless again in possession and when he went off at half-time, Everton's tempo and drive went up.
Sunderland had already been warned where the threat would come from in the 54th minute when Seamus Coleman fizzed a low ball across the face of the Everton six-yard box and Lukaku was a whisker away from steering the ball home.
Six minutes later, on the counter attack, Deulofeu ran sixty yards unchallenged and when the ball was cleared it only reached Gueye and he floated a fine ball into the Sunderland six yard area and Lukaku, unmarked, headed past Pickford's right arm.
Confidence drained from David Moyes’ side. Eight minutes later Bolasie skipped past Javier Manquillo on the opposite flank, and sent over a cross that Lukaku, again unmarked, headed into the Sunderland goal.
The centre forward had not finished. In the 71st minute the ball broke to him from Gareth Barry and suddenly he was clear through on goal. He took a touch and then clipped a crisply hit finish into the bottom corner of Pickford's goal. Sunderland were done.
It could and probably should have been more. Bolasie cut in and his powerful drive was tipped over by the overworked Pickford. Less than a minute later Lukaku blasted a shot over the bar. In the closing minutes Deulofeu saw a deflected shot go narrow wide.
Sunderland are hoping Lamine Kone will sign a new deal in the next two weeks.
He wanted to move to Everton in the summer but the attempted switch was blocked. Goodness only knows what his thoughts were as he left the Stadium of Light on Monday night. It is another problem for Moyes to deal with.
Sunderland have scored only three goals this season and the reliance on Defoe is huge.
There was industry and effort in the first half from a team that is young and inexperienced. For that they were applauded off at half-time, before the collapse. By the final whistle it was the jeers of a largely empty stadium that they had to contend with.
The contrast and the switch in moods in the two clubs inside four months is remarkable.
With two minutes to go, Lukaku's night was over. He left the field smiling and hugged his Ronald Koeman, his new manager.
“Moyesy, Moyesy give us a wave,” came the jubilant chant cry from the away support.
He didn’t.
In May his predecessor, Sam Allardyce, was doing victory jigs on the pitch, pointing at delirious supporters. It feels a long time ago. All momentum has gone.
Everton went and strengthened and bought well, Sunderland didn’t. Yet again, the winter months, for them at least, look bleak.
Everton, by contrast, with Lukaku in this form, will fear few.
The Independent