There may have been the sense before kick-off that the cavalry were arriving over Everton Hills and towards Goodison Park.
The sight of Dominic Calvert-Lewin being picked to play for the first time in over four months, and the parading of new signing Vitaliy Mykolenko, pointed to better times.
But so much of what happened in this, a ninth league defeat of a gloomy season, explains exactly why Everton still need rescuing.
And why it will take more than a couple of new (or familiar) faces around the place.
In terms of games played, the Blues are not yet at the half-way stage but nobody can deny, for one second, that this team are not in the grubby mitts of a relegation fight.
Calvert-Lewin played the entire game, such was Everton's desperate situation here, and while the addition of Mykolenko - and hopefully others this month - will improve the squad, today taught us that it remains a long road ahead.
There will be no quick fix. Everton can pull themselves out of this hole but they need to make drastic improvements, and fast.
There are, on paper, three teams who are worse than the Blues but not as many are as out of form or with as many problems that cannot be shaken.
Happy New Year, eh?
Calvert-Lewin's return is a major boost but he, understandably, needs time to get back up to match fitness.
More than that, he needs a better performing team behind him.
Another slow start - 13 times the Blues have conceded first in 18 Premier League games this season - ultimately left them with a deficit they could not claw back.
There were spells when it looked possible but, in the end, it wasn't. Near-misses count for nothing.
- Vote for your Everton man of the match
Yes, this squad have won 11 points from losing positions but they've also seen many more points disappear into the pockets of others after shipping the first goal.
If you keep conceding first, then you are asking for trouble.
And if you continue to make barely believable mistakes, individual errors and pass the ball with such little care, at times, then you are also inviting the type of pressure that leaves you nervously looking behind you at the bottom three.
This evening, the gap is eight points. Even at this stage, it's too close for comfort.
Today's errors, all different in their nature, are the type of factors that Rafa Benitez knows contribute to having to fight for your survival.
ANALYSIS: 'Reaction of Everton fans to Salomon Rondon shows major issue for Rafa Benitez'
RATINGS: 'Couldn't stop the confusion' - Everton players ranked as Gordon shines in Brighton loss
READ MORE: Everton new stadium chief gives 'exciting' Bramley-Moore Dock update
How can we talk of relegation fights, less than half-way through a season?
Easily: because of the evidence laid bare today. Or the fact that since that first home defeat of the season, to West Ham- United, Goodison has increasingly felt like less and less of a sanctuary.
The electric Arsenal win aside, Everton players have looked ever more petrified about playing the wrong pass or making a mistake.
By virtue of such thinking, they play the wrong pass and make mistakes.
- Who should Everton keep and sell in January?
But this isn't on the crowd. This is on the players and Benitez.
They have to deal with the fact the atmosphere at Goodison, at the moment, is so delicately balanced and the manager remains deeply unpopular with sections of supporters.
The booing of Salomon Rondon, when he was brought off the bench, was deeply unhelpful, but it's a symptom of a wider unrest.
Goodison will, in the main, back the players but they have to help themselves. Slow starts don't do that. Playing with the attitude and intent of Anthony Gordon and Demarai Gray, does.
Everton were riddled with problems in the first-half - compounded by Calvert-Lewin's penalty miss - but were much better after the break.
They were aggressive and on the front foot more. Regrettably, they still made sufficient mistakes to present Brighton with the chance to score a third.
Gordon had a late opportunity to grab an equaliser, for what would have been his hat-trick, but that wasn't where this game got away from Everton.
It was the first-half, and the big error in the second when Michael Keane panicked, opting not to clear his lines but, instead, deciding to play a pass that wasn't on.
Playing the wrong pass was the calling card of most in royal blue today.
And you could see that worry in their body language. Confident? Many of this lot are anything but.
Yet they have to lose that feeling, for the sake of the season. A lack of confidence kills campaigns. No confident team ever went down, right?
READ MORE: Rafa Benitez drops Lucas Digne attitude hint after Everton bench decision
Gray and Gordon carried the hopes of a fightback here but without them, there would not have even been one to talk about.
Abdoulaye Doucoure and Allan, for example, belatedly joined the charge but where were they in the opening forty five?
Where was the aggression when Brighton started well and were on top, scoring in the third minute?
We've written on these pages before that Doucoure, especially, is too important to this team to develop a habit of starting games off the pace. He can't afford to start slowly and neither can Everton.
Benitez is still hamstrung, to a significant extent, by selection problems, but he may reflect tonight that his choice of formation was not right for this game. Brighton, in the first-half at least, found it all too easily to play through.
We've no doubt said that on several occasions this season but if Everton are to drag themselves away from their worrying predicament, then it has to stop.
Before the win over Arsenal last month, Benitez said the "table doesn't lie".
Since he said that, Everton have won once, drawn one and lost twice. They were 16th before the game with Arsenal.
Tonight, the Blues are 15th and, still, the table doesn't lie.
Injuries will, hopefully, clear in time and new signings will make the squad stronger, but such factors will count for little - or not enough - if the Blues don't sort out many of the problems that helped make up this sorry defeat.
