Carlo Ancelotti says whoever scored first was always going to win Everton's to-and-fro battle with Leeds United.
And it was the visitors who scored the only goal of the game at Goodison, with Raphinia striking past Jordan Pickford with just over 10 minutes remaining.
Leeds had 23 attempts on the night to Everton's 15 and Ancelotti was left to bemoan the chances his side wasted.
The Everton boss was not overly critical of his players, despite a second straight defeat at home and yet another game without a clean sheet, saying their performance was good.
But Ancelotti reflected that the opening goal was always likely to be crucial.
"We knew this kind of game, it was an open game," he said.
"They had opportunities, more in the first-half compared to the second. We had opportunities in the first and second-half, above all, on the counter-attack.
"Who scored first would win the game. They scored first and this is the reason they won.
"They played well, in my opinion, we didn't play a bad game but it was not enough to have the result.
"The opportunities we had, we could be more clinical on the final pass, on the final shot. That was the game."
On the decisive goal, Ancelotti added: "It was a straight shot. Godfrey was close to the ball, Jordan in that situation didn't see the ball when it started to move because it was close to the body of Ben Godfrey and it was difficult to save.
"It is true that Jordan made some fantastic saves in two or three opportunities."
Everton were playing their first game without the injured Lucas Digne while captain Seamus Coleman remained sidelined with a hamstring issue.
Ancelotti selected Alex Iwobi and Tom Davies to play as wing-backs in a 3-4-3 formation.
"We missed some players, we needed to adapt," he said.
"Honestly, they adapted quite well. The work of the wing-back was really high. They needed to defend, they needed to attack and so we put on fresh legs but the performance of both of them was, in my opinion, was good.
"I think we played bad against Southampton, we played bad against Newcastle, today was not a top game, a good game, but not enough to win but we competed and if we could score before them, we could win."
