By Matt Hardy
Everton today climbed out of the Premier League relegation zone with an impressive 5-1 win away to Brighton and Hove Albion.
The victory offers Sean Dyche’s Toffees a survival lifeline as they climb from 19th to two points clear of the drop.
Abdoulaye Doucoure opened the scoring for the travelling side inside 40 seconds before adding a second on the 29-minute mark.
Brighton keeper Jason Steele directed a shot into his own net to hand Everton a 3-0 lead at half-time.
The Toffees added their fourth and fifth through player of the match Dwight McNeil after Alexis Mac Allister converted a chance to net Brighton’s only goal.
Brighton remain seventh in the Premier League table but are now eight points adrift of Manchester United in the hunt for the Champions League qualifying spot for finishing fourth.
Roberto De Zerbi’s men are now also in danger of dropping further off the pace with Aston Villa just a point behind them and Brentford a further four beyond the West Midlands side.
Foxes hunted down in Premier League
Elsewhere in the Premier League Fulham put five past Leicester City in a 5-3 win as the Londoners looked to cement themselves inside the top half of the table. Willian opened the scoring with the first of two goals for the Brazil international before Carlos Vinicius netted to give Fulham a 2-0 lead.
Tom Cairney put the home side 4-0 up at Craven Cottage with a goal either side of half-time before Harvey Barnes netted the first of his two goals for Leicester to reduce the deficit to three.
Willian added his second of the night before a late James Maddison penalty and a second goal from Barnes completed the eight goal thriller.
There are six matches on Saturday as round 36 of 38 gets underway while three matches take place on Sunday and Liverpool’s trip to Leicester completes the round on Monday.
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