SIMON GRAYSON would love to see Sunderland deliver a result on Saturday that gives everyone a lift on Wearside, just as Everton delivered on Merseyside to put his own team out of the Carabao Cup.

The Black Cats, struggling at the wrong end of the Championship, contained a lacklustre Everton for the opening 39 minutes at Goodison Park, but found the Premier League opposition too strong to keep them out any longer.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s opener six minutes before the break was followed by his second shortly after the restart before Oumar Niasse completed the 3-0 win to set up a date at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea in the fourth round.

Everton have been having their own problems in the top-flight this season, with a lack of goals and chances contributing to a poor start despite a summer of big spending.

Toffees boss Ronald Koeman stated afterwards that scoring goals is “the best medicine for confidence” and Grayson can understand what he means – even if the Sunderland boss is desperate to keep teams out at the other end too.

Grayson said: “We would like to achieve the same scoreline on Saturday (against Cardiff) and keep clean sheets. Tonight was always going to be difficult. Everton were respectful with the team they put out.

“We know we could have done better but we are down on numbers through injury too, so we couldn’t make the changes we would have liked.

“I think for 40 minutes we contained them. They had long distance shots. That was the game plan to keep it tight. The goal before half-time gave them a lift.

“We had been quite comfortable but from then on it opened up, we got punished for mistakes, we gave them time and space in the box.”

Ideally Grayson would have preferred to have mixed things up in the final third rather than have to field James Vaughan against his former club, knowing how reliant he is on him in the league.

But he clearly felt he couldn’t turn to Swedish teenage striker Joel Asoro to lead the line at Goodison Park, and left him on the bench for the 90 minutes.

Contrastingly, Koeman was able to look to Calvert-Lewin to inspire Everton when they needed it the most after going 443 minutes without scoring – and the decision to leave out Wayne Rooney, who wanted to play.

Grayson said: “He (Calvert-Lewin) is a talented player, one of the most promising players around. But we are disappointed to give them too much time in the box, that’s why we got punished, not through a lack of effort, just the mistakes. We are disappointed to go out and we tried to win the game.”

Grayson made six changes to the side which drew at Hull on Saturday, and he will be looking to make further changes when Cardiff City arrive at the Stadium of Light on Saturday as Sunderland look to win at home for the first time since December. He could have John O’Shea available.

Grayson said: “I thought there were some OK performances. Darron Gibson did OK on the ball. When Jonny Williams and Callum McManaman came on we did better on the ball. Players who have not been having much game time had a game here so that’s good for them too.

“Marc Wilson was not available through injury. Hopefully we will have a few players back for Saturday. O’Shea has done some work this week and we will see for the weekend.

“The Championship is, of course, the focus, but we did come to Everton to try to get a result. We wanted to get through to the next round.

“Everton have won a game and I am sure it will do their confidence the world of good. We have a tough week now with Cardiff, Ipswich and Preston coming up so hopefully we can get a result that gets our confidence up.”