It has been a forgettable past 48 hours for Everton. Having watched Liverpool climb above them into fourth place in the Barclays Premier League with a 4-0 victory over West Ham United on Wednesday, David Moyes’s team were dealt another body-blow last night when two deserved late goals for Fiorentina left their Uefa Cup hopes hanging by a thread.

Everton will welcome the Italians to Goodison Park next week needing to produce arguably the best performance of a largely impressive season, or, at the very least, one several notches above what they managed here, if they are to progress to the quarter-finals of the competition.

The Merseyside club have never overturned a first-leg deficit in European competition, although they may take heart from Tim Howard, the goalkeeper, making the task not insurmountable.

This, nonetheless, was a chastening experience for Everton. Only a place may separate the teams in their respective leagues — Fiorentina are fourth in Serie A; Everton fifth — but the gulf in class was acute and it remains to be seen what psychological damage such a demoralising defeat might have as the season enters its final phase.

Everton were organised and obdurate for most of the first half, but as the game wore on, they lost their shape as Fiorentina probed and penetrated to devastating effect, usually with the outstanding Riccardo Montolivo at the helm.

Moyes’s men were indebted to Howard that the scoreline remained goalless when the game entered its 70th minute. The United States goalkeeper had made three fine saves to frustrate Fiorentina, but it only ever seemed a matter of time before the Serie A side would make the decisive breakthrough. Typically, Montolivo was involved. The midfield player’s shot was blocked only as far as Tomas Ujfalusi, who teed up Zdravko Kuzmanovic to drill a fierce 22-yard shot into the corner.

The goal sucked the life out of Everton and their plight worsened nine minutes from time when Montolivo capped a marvellous individual display by striking the sweetest of volleys past Howard from just outside the penalty area after Martin Jørgensen flicked on Mario Alberto Santana’s cross.

If there was any good news for Everton, it came in the 87th minute when Santana, clean through, shot wide when a third goal would almost certainly have killed the tie, but however well Everton play in the return leg on Wednesday, it is hard to envisage such a quality team imploding.

“It’s a big job now,” Moyes said. “We will certainly have to play better than we did tonight if we are to progress. I thought some of the players didn’t play to their potential, that’s for sure. In fact, the majority of them didn’t.”

This was always going to represent the toughest challenge yet of Everton’s Uefa Cup campaign, but if the extent of Fiorentina’s superiority was surprising, most alarming for Moyes was the fact that their opponents not only worked harder but seemed to want it more.

Everton’s tactics were simple: press the ball, give the Italian side no time in possession and attempt to play on the counter-attack, but while they started well enough and their intentions were sound, it was not long before they were being picked off.

The first real scare came in the 43rd minute when Howard, in what was to become a familiar sight, denied Christian Vieri with an outstretched leg. The American seemed determined to celebrate his 29th birthday with a sixth clean sheet in eight matches and made a terrific double save just before the hour, first denying Vieri, the veteran Italian striker, then thwarting Kuzmanovic with another decisive stop.

Everton, on the other hand, barely registered a shot on target, but while for a time it looked as though such caution might be enough for them to claim a memorable, if undeserved, victory, it was not to be. Far from it, in fact.

Fiorentina (4-3-3): S Frey — T Ujfalusi, A Gamberini, D Dainelli, M Pasqual — Z Kuzmanovic (sub: M Gobbi, 76min), M Donadel, R Montolivo — M Jørgensen, C Vieri (sub: G Pazzini, 67), P D Osvaldo (sub: M Santana, 74). Substitutes not used: V Avramov, P Krøldrup, A Potenza, D Cacia. Booked: Ujfalusi, Gobbi.

Everton (4-4-1-1): T Howard — A Hibbert (sub: A Johnson, 73), J Yobo, P Jagielka, J Lescott — P Neville, L Carsley, L Osman (sub: M Arteta, 56), S Pienaar — T Cahill — Yakubu Ayegbeni. Substitutes not used: S Wessels, L Baines, T Gravesen, V Anichebe, D Gosling. Booked: Yakubu, Pienaar, Howard.

Referee: P Allaerts (Belgium).