For much of the night, he looked like a man whose dreams of Wembley was evaporating. Hands on the hips, arms waved in frustration, his head shaking frequently.
Marco Silva, clearly, was not happy with everything he saw from his Everton side but, ultimately, the task was accomplished. A victory over Rotherham may have been achieved without the style the Portuguese wants but a win is a win.
Everton, in years gone by, have made heavy weather of these kind of games and they did so again. Rotherham had plenty of energy and commitment but all they had to show was a late header from Will Vaulks. Ultimately goals from Gylfi Sigurdsson and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (two) were enough.
In keeping with the trend of this competition, both sides made eight changes but the most significant alteration for Everton was the captain's armband being handed to Tom Davies who, at 20 years and 69 days, became the youngest player to lead the team.
Davies, as is his way, was a busy figure in the opening stages. He was constantly involved and tried his best to establish a foothold for his team against spirited opponents, who served early notice of their intentions with speculative efforts from striker Jamie Proctor and Joe Newell.
Soon, though, Everton began to find a rhythm and after Sigurdsson forced goalkeeper Lewis Price to make a plunging save in the 21st minute, the Iceland international released the tension inside the stadium by bundling in from close range as a ball fizzed across the six-yard box.
The goal was created by Sandro Ramirez, who was a surprise inclusion in the starting line-up; the Spain Under-21 international is expected to sign a season-long loan deal with Real Sociedad on Thursday, with Silva eager for him to get some games.
From that point, the tie thankfully became more open and that should have served to benefit Rotherham. In the 37th minute, they almost profited when Ben Wiles and Joe Newell combined on the left but the latter's cross skidded past Sean Raggett, who was waiting to pounce.
Back came Everton within 60 seconds and Sandro, whose first year on Merseyside had been a disaster, was again involved, ushering Sigurdsson to the byline; his cut back found Davies but his shot was too close to Price and he was able to palm the ball away.
Given the encouraging way they have started the Premier League campaign, Everton should have had far too much class for Rotherham but the longer things dragged on without them having the buffer of a second goal, the more restless the majority of 31,972 crowd became.
It was not a good performance and the way Silva allowed his head to flop down in frustration and waved his arms like windmills at times left you in no doubt that he was unhappy with what he was seeing.
Before he could get totally vexed, though, the second goal arrived. Sigurdsson's free-kick hit the wall and bounced to Jonjoe Kenny, whose cross to the back post was met perfectly by Calvert-Lewin and, with that Everton seemed to be across the line.
Not so. Rotherham had one last crack at Everton and Vaulks, on as substitute, raised hopes they might force penalties with a towering header in the 85th minute but almost immediately Calvert-Lewin dashed their hopes with a brilliant curling effort. Finally Silva was happy.
