Everton boss Rafa Benitez says a preseason thrashing by today's opponents Manchester United was good for them.
Goals from Mason Greenwood, Harry Maguire, Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot gave the hosts the victory in August in what was a disappointing performance from the Blues.
But Benitez believes his side have certainly progressed from that point and thinks that he can perhaps use the loss as positive motivation for this weekend's trip to Manchester.
The boss admitted: "I think this game was strange because I don't think it was so bad, the final score was too much for me.
"Obviously we have been improving. I've said so many times, this players train really well and then they are keen to learn. We have improved as a team, we are stronger and more solid.
"But we will play against a great team, so you never know what can happen. At least we know we can compete and we can get three points. That's what we are looking for.
"To be fair, it's not really the best to lose a game in the way that we lost.
"You can learn from any game, but normally you learn more from when you lose because everyone is trying to analyse what's going on. I try to do that even when we win.
"To lose this game, we realised there still was a lot of things we had to improve at this time. Also, it maybe gave me the opportunity to tell the players we cannot relax, because you see what can happen.
"Maybe we can use it as a positive thing for the next game."
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