Dropping points can be bad for your morale but not necessarily your health.

Roberto De Zerbi at least assured us of that much as he faced the media before heading to Merseyside.

Last week, after a late night against Ajax, he had told us of a key acquisition he had made for his home.

It was a coffee machine and he seemed very pleased with it.

“It speaks Italian,” he told us and one can assume his standards on coffee are as exacting as those when his team pass the ball.

Stress levels seem to soar when a pass goes backwards or sideways rather than forward as his team build up play.

Maybe it is more healthy to let out your frustrations and emotions rather than keeping them bottled up.

So De Zerbi, who admits he loves a cigarette, was asked a stress-related question designed to elicit a funny answer after a run of four league games without a win.

Does he smoke more after a defeat than after a win?

“No, no change. Cigarettes, no.”

So it’s not bad for your health, then?

“What, the defeat or the cigarettes?” he replied.

De Zerbi still looks very fit and healthy after his caffeine and nicotine, just as Albion still look very healthy on the league table after a tougher run of results.

But it is clear they face a thorough examination at Goodison Park this afternoon.

The sort they used to face there, not the relative walk in the park they enjoyed when they visited last January.

De Zerbi will look for an improvement in performance - or his team’s bright start to the season might go up in smoke.

He said: “It can happen in one game, like Aston Villa, when we didn’t play well. We didn’t play, full stop.

“It can happen and you have to accept. But games like Fulham you have to win. And when you can win, you have to win. If you have a good mentality, a good attitude.

“And the same when you are conceding so many goals.

“In Wolverhampton, in Luton, in Newcastle, we conceded stupid goals and we made similar mistakes.

“We are not happy about performances because I think we can do better. And we can play better.

“We can push, more and more.”

It is fairly obvious the disappointment of two points dropped against Fulham is still enveloping De Zerbi like smoke which won’t float away in the breeze.

That seems to happen with him for certain results, as perhaps it does all of us.

Now, with a spluttering two points from 12 of late but a healthy 17 from 30 overall, he said: “I think we are working well but I am not happy about our performances or I am not happy enough.

“I think we are doing not what I would like.

“There are many reasons but we are not happy about the last result.

“We have to win more games.

“We are conceding too many goals and we have to do better.

“Against Fulham we suffered for five minutes.

“It’s normal to suffer but it’s not normal to concede a goal in five minutes.

“We have to be more focussed and with more attitude to reach the result.

“We couldn’t lose two points with Fulham.

“Fulham shot three times on goal and we didn’t win the game.

“It’s incredible but we have to work better, maybe.

“Lucky, unlucky? Okay, maybe one time but not always.”

One game from the past which has obviously been mentioned this week, but does not seem to bug De Zerbi so much, is the 5-1 battering when Everton visited in May.

Sean Dyche followed wins at the Amex with Burnley in the previous seasons with what was seen as another tactical masterclass.

The relegation-haunted Toffees led from the opening seconds and Albion, from minute two, started chasing the game like it was minute 90+2.

They were blunted, then picked off - and then Jordan Pickford thwarted what might still have been a sensational second-half recovery given the chances they created.

It was a strange match at a very particular point of the season.

Could Everton play that way before their adoring home fans at Goodison?

Is it relevant that Dyche, with Burnley and Everton, has enjoyed big wins on his last three trips to the Amex (goal difference 11-2) but only secured one point in his last three home fixtures against the Seagulls?

De Zerbi said: “I think in football it is impossible to play the same game.

“Last season we lost the game, Everton played better than Brighton.

“But we were fighting to reach an incredible target for us.

“We were playing three games in a week.

“We won three days before, against Manchester United, and, five days after, we won against Arsenal.

“In that game we lost our style, we lost energy and, to compete in the Premier League, you have to compete with energy.”