It had everything.
Weight of pass, vision, execution. It was a simply sublime through ball from James Rodriguez.
Gylfi Sigurdsson, in fairness, had found a slight crack in the Brighton and Hove Albion defence and made his way through it unnoticed.
But how Rodriguez found him still seemed scientifically impossible.
Sigurdsson, though, chose the out-ball to Lucas Digne when in a good position and the chance was gone.
One of the most technically gifted players in the Premier League failed to look over his shoulder and try to force the issue.
Everton needed more in that moment.
In fact, they needed more from him all night.
Lining-up in a makeshift midfield alongside Tom Davies and Mason Holgate, a centre-back, this was a game Sigurdsson should have looked to take by the scruff of the neck. Demand the ball. Move into space. Show some bottle.
Sadly, he was too passive. He did not offer enough. But how many times has that been said since the arrival of Carlo Ancelotti?
Okay, there are contributing factors. Sigurdsson is not naturally a deep-lying central midfielder and this was not, by any means, a nightmare performance. Defensively, in fairness, he worked hard for the team.
But that is the least you can expect from a £45m player.
There was this sense of something missing. Something Everton didn't have.
Something Marcel Brands will have to fix in the summer transfer window.
And the Everton director of football might have found the ideal candidates in Brighton midfielder Yves Bissouma.
Diminutive but powerful, the 24-year-old made life difficult for Everton all evening.
His distribution was calm and progressive and he almost landed an ambitious overhead kick in the top corner.
But it wasn't just on the front-foot. Bissouma was all-action and made five successful tackles - with a 100 per cent ratio - over the course of 90 minutes. No-one else on the field boasted more.
There are other, more pressing areas of concern for Brands and Carlo Ancelotti in the summer transfer window of course.
A right-back and a forward - an issue highlighted by the pre-match injury to Dominic Calvert-Lewin - both feature in this bracket.
But this Everton team is crying out for a little more pace, a little more dynamism in the middle.
Bissouma - or someone of a similar skill-set - would surely fit the bill.
